


Legend Of The Lián Jué Zhě

by Blanca_Angelic_Loveless



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Canon Disabled Character, Cluster As Family (Sense8), Don't Have to Know Sense8 Canon, Families of Choice, Found Family, Gen, Inspired By Sense8, Spirit World, Synesthesia, Trans Female Character, Worldbuilding, lots of hugging
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25706104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanca_Angelic_Loveless/pseuds/Blanca_Angelic_Loveless
Summary: The comet is nearing once more and the balance of the world won't survive another blow. The spirits are desperate, but the Avatar is no closer to either emerging from or dying in his iceberge, and so the spirits create a solution the best they can. They bound the souls of several children from across the world, and hoped they could do together what the Avatar had failed to do twice over now: stop the inbalance of the world.
Relationships: Hahn/Yue, Jin & Professor Zei (Avatar), Jin & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Pakku (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Katara & Suki (Avatar), Katara & Ty Lee (Avatar), Katara & Yue (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Ty Lee & Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Ty Lee (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar), Teo & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Jin (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Katara, Toph Beifong & Zuko, Ty Lee & Zuko (Avatar), Ty Lee/Zuko (Avatar), Yue & Yugoda (Avatar), Yue & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 93
Collections: Fantastic A:TLA Fanfics!





	1. How It Started

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, these chapters read more like if I was telling you the story off the top of my head in person, because these are written for fun, but they're comprehensive and they're fun to read :)

Okay so it starts about 80 AG. The world is in turmoil, the human world is so out of balance it's greatly affecting the spirit world. Humans are begging for help, but no individual spirit has the power to do more than help here and there. The avatar shows no signs of either emerging from, or dying in, the iceberg he'd encased himself in nearly a century ago, and Sozin's Comet is approaching once more, an event the Fire Nation will no doubt use to deal another deadly blow to the balance of their world.

The spirits have tried creating a new avatar, but there's no one like Raava. No one who is as pure, no one as powerful, no one willing to die themself. And even if there were, the lion turtles have made it clear they will not grant all four bending powers to another single mortal again. If they want an avatar, they can wait for the one they have.

But they don't have the time. Tui and La have tried to guide the iceberg toward the shore of the Southern Water tribe, but it's slow going, as if the iceberg and the child within resist them. It remains firmly submerged, miles out to sea. They have to do something now, neither the mortals' world, nor the Spirits' can take another blow.

It's the Spirit of the Banyan Tree that comes up with the idea. She's a young spirit by immortal standards, younger than the avatar cycle, but only just. Her Swamp had been present on the mortal plain for almost as long as the mortal plain had been separate from the Spirit world, and almost as soon as they could, humans had begun taking refuge within her branches. She's watched her community shift and change and grow with her and with one another for a thousand millennia. Many had found enlightenment beneath her tree, and her latest guardian, Huu, is no exception.

Huu is a kind and simple soul, who's learned to use the spiritual life flowing within her swamp from all its connected roots, to find his people when they're lost, to shift about the pathways to guide unwelcome visitors out. He's as connected to her as she is to every life within her branches, and she wonders why the other mortals couldn't, just, be connected that way. That would certainly stop them from fighting each other.

And so she proudly presents this idea before the other spirits, suggesting one child for each of the nations, saying she can mingle their four souls before birth, so that no matter where they go, they will always be together, they will share their joys, and sorrows, learn from one another's failures. They will learn great empathy for others unlike themselves, and hopefully learn a way to fulfill the destiny the Avatar has abandoned.

Most spirits celebrate this idea, overjoyed to finally have a viable solution to the world's great problem.

One spirit however, vehemently declares her objections before any further plans can be made. The Mother of Faces prides herself on practically being the creator of individuality, and she cannot stand the idea of any people, no matter how small the number, having their chances for developing their own unique selves disrupted. She argues that they can't learn anything from each other, if they're all learning all the perspectives at once as they grow with each other and learn from their teachers all at once. She insisted they'll compartmentalize so many conflicting ideologies being shoved at them from birth. They won't want to fight for the betterment of the world, they'll simply accept it for the confusing mess it is. They won't have differing perspectives on anything, because they will have all lived each other's perspective together. It would never work, she insists.

Her objections are take into consideration by the others, but rather than dismissing the whole idea as she wanted, it's agreed that they can spare the first ten years of the children's lives, so that they can developed their own likes and dislikes, opinions and personalities, so that when they are joined, the new perspectives will be something to chew on, and think over.

Then someone brings up the fact that the northern and southern water tribes have vastly different cultures, especially now after nearly a century of war in which one has hidden itself away behind a wall of ice, and the other has gone almost extinct. To choose only one child to represent both tribes would be dishonest, so it's agreed that a child from each tribe will be chosen.

And then another spirit comments that children along the east coast of the Earth Kingdom, and children that say, grow up behind the walls of Ba Sing Se, where there is no talk of war allowed, also live vastly different lives.

And what of those that live on the fire isles, and those in the colonies?

Those Air nomads that live together in secluded pockets hidden from the world, and those that are simply lone descendants of the nomads that escaped, living alone among the fire and Earth nations, surely they have differing perspectives on the war as well?

What about those who cannot bend? Surely they have valid perspectives to bring to the table, just as much as anyone else? Surely they have worthy skills to consider?

And really, how had the mortal world settled so readily on having only one Avatar every generation to represent the world!?!?

In the end, the Spirit of the Banyan Tree has to put her foot down, and cap the number of souls she's willing to Cluster into one, at twelve. She will choose one child, a child from her Swamp, and the rest of them, they may choose the others.

Tui and La choose first, from the people of the water tribes. They decide both children will be the children of the chiefs of the tribes, thinking that these children will best learn the histories and cultures of their tribes, and understand the importance of community and family best among any of their people, they will know how to share this knowledge with their cluster.

Agni chooses next, for the representation of fire. He decides easily that one of his should be from the society of the Sun Warriors. The ancient ways of the sun and the dragons have been lost for too many of his children, and it would be unspeakably valuable to have that knowledge returned to the world.

And then, to much protests, he decides his second choice should be a child of high ranking and nobility. Many gawk at this, because it's no secret that the spirits are enacting this plan to stop the Fire Nation's war. And the idea of allowing someone, who may one day have the ear of the Fire Lord in on such a precious secret, seems too great a risk. Agni argues that it is the nobility of the Fire Nation who make the war, and it's the nobility who will have the power to stop it. They must have some one who will one day have the power to stop the war on the side of stopping the war, having a peasant from the farther islands within the cluster may give a more sympathetic few of the fire nation to those in the cluster, but it will do nothing for actually stopping the war.

Agni also feels there should be a child added from the Fire Nation Colonies in the cluster, but he gives the choice to Lady Teinhia, who has been the guardian of the Earth Kingdom's West coast since its inception, as recompense for all his people have done to hers and her land.

Lady Teinhia decides she will find a loving family, that is mixed from both Fire and Earth, to give a child, to show that healing is possible. That even after all the hurt and war, the Nation's can still learn to work together and live in peace.

Lady Oma and her lover Shu are the one to choose from the Earth Kingdom. The Earth Kingdom is large, and it is a tough choice, but in the end they easily decide there should be one child from the southern Earth Kingdom, far enough inland that they have not felt too greatly the effects of the war, to show the other what the world could look like without the fear of blood and death hanging over them every day.

For their second child, they take into consideration what a previous spirit had said, and decide there will be a child from within the walls of Ba Sing Se, who will live in the lower right, and show the others the lives of those who run from the war, and still suffer, with lives uprooted, loved one left behind, and barely a copper piece to their name.

There are no specific Spirits the Air Nomads Warship, in fact they had worshipped them all with equal devotion, and many Monks had achieved spiritual enlightenment and joined the spirits in the spirit world. For Men and Women of "Peace and Love" they all have such a way of arguing for themselves to have the privilege of choosing the Air Nomad children for the cluster. The spirit of the Banyan Tree silences them what must have been hours on the mortal plan, declaring that it will be Monk Gyatso who has the choice, for it was those who had not listened to him about the good for Avatar Aang that had landed them hear in the first place. Monk Gyatso had known what he was doing then, and he would surely make the right decision now.

Gyatso chooses there should be a child from the northern earth kingdom, who is a descendant of the air nomads, thinking once the child realised who they are- as even now it was rare for a descendant of the air not to be an airbender- they would be able to scale the northern air temple and bring some of that knowledge back to the world. For the second child, he choses it should be a child from a settlement of Air Nomads, living in seclusion near the Eastern Air Temple, as they will be able to provide the perspective of how the air nomads are living in the here and now.

From here, there are two children left to be chosen, and one of the choices is given to Wan Shi Tong, who's been in a fowl mood (pun not intended, unless you're Agni) since the beginning of this seemingly endless war. It's hoped allowing him a hand in what is hopeful a successful solution will smooth his ruffled feather (Agni snickers) for the time being. Wan Shi Tong declairs his choice is a child from the island of Kyoshi, where they have been surrounded by the influence of three nations for centuries, and ally themselves with none, declaring themselves not Earth or Water or Air, but having people who live in harmony from all walks of life.

The last choice is given to the Mother of Face, as a hopeful apology for the displeasure the whole affair gives her. Not liking the idea, but certainly not going to turn down the honor she's been granted, the Mother of Faces declares she wants a child of fire and air added to the cluster, a child who will know the consequences of fire's wrath first hand, as they learn the element of their birth, and history of their dead people, while surrounded by the very society that had inflicted this life upon them.

This is a praised idea. And the Mother of Face smiles graciously and thanks them all for their compliments, all the while planning a little, she might call it only a prank, of her own. On principle, the Mother of Faces does not much like identicals- siblings born with mirrored faces- but she's willing to make a small exception just this once, to bring the true perspective she wishes to have within the cluster. And no one will be able to protest, for she will make her chosen child of fire and air, the child she has dominion over to influence, the identical. It is her right to guide this perspective into being is it not? She will make them a triplet, perhaps a quintuplets, so they will know from birth what it's like to be a part of a matched set, with less of their own identity than most, and with any luck, her chosen child will resist the pull of this "cluster's" melded identity. Will remind them all, no matter how connected they are, they are still, all of them, allowed to be their own person


	2. How Things Go A Bit Sideways

So the spirits all set out to find families who fit the bill for precisely the child they want to bring into the cluster.

The Banyan Tree Spirit chooses the sister of Huu, and her husband, to grant a child, knowing being raised so near her Guardian granted her child the best chance of understanding of his connection with the others when the cluster turns ten.

Chí is a very intuitive when it come to the spiritual practice of the tribe, and the adults of the tribe knows he's destined for greatness by the age of four, when he wander off and finds the center of the swamp, telling his family three days later when they find him that he'd felt the spirit of the Banyan Tree calling to him. Chí is a natural born leader and peace keeper, and all of the kids his age always look to him to get them out of trouble, or have a grievance with another before any adult learns what's happened, knowing he'll settle it more fairly and with less adulty judgment.

Life is peaceful in the swamp, but Chí knows the spirit of his home has even bigger plans than the adults guess, and he listens to every dream she gives him, follows her guidance and learns to be the fair and calm person she wants him to be, know some day the fate of the world will depend on it, and never passes up an opportunity to prove himself to her.

For Tui and La, finding families is no obstacle, they knew who they would choose from the beginning. Chief Hakoda and his wife Kya of the Southern water Tribe, well they may not be trying for a second child, but they aren't exactly trying to avoid it either. Chief Arnook and his wife in the North  _ are _ trying for a child, have been for some years, and their joy is palpably felt when they learn the chief's wife is pregnant.

When Yue is born comatose, the spirits panic. Her soul is intact, and she lives, but she does not react to the world around her. When Chief Arnook brings her to the spirit oasis, Tui is able to imbue Yue with a bit of her own life, and it's assumed that something simply went wrong when the Banyan Tree was connecting her soul to the others. They're never sure, but Yue lives happy and healthy afterwards.

She shows signs of water bending around the age of five, and is happy to join the other young girls in their healing lessons, making friends, and forming ideas of being a healer in the army when she's older, not yet old enough to grasp that her position as a woman, and the princess, do not allow this. Her father explains it poorly when she expressed her goals, but her mother humors her in a way that gives her hope for her dreams.

Katara shows herself to be a water bender during a tantrum at three, and the whole Southern Tribe celebrates. All knowledge of the southern waterbender's fighting style had been lost to the war, even scrolls with the written knowledge had been found and burned, but it doesn't stop everyone from encouraging Katara. When Hakoda teaches Sokka ways to fight, to defend himself, he breaks with tradition, and has Katara join them. Her life is in more danger than any other- if the raiders catch wind of her he knows they'll return, and Hakoda will be damned if he'll leave his daughter unable to defend herself.

Katara is eight when her mother dies, and she shows her strength as she steps up, even at such a young age, to help out her Gran Gran, taking on as many tasks as she could so that her dad and Sokka won't feel the loss of Kya as terrible. She tried to keep everything the same. Her fighting training falls to the wayside because of this.

For Agni, there was no trouble in finding a place for a child of the Cluster in the Sun Warrior's Society. They were a small clan, and all lived relatively equal to one another, all he had to do was sit back and let nature take its course there. In the end, it's with a family with four children already that the Banyan Tree Spirit finds a home for one of her souls.

Lóngwěi is… Lóngwěi. He's prideful and playful and a little bit mean spirited. He likes playing tricks on his cousins and siblings, and never seems to learn when he gets himself in trouble.

He thinks he's special, and above many things because when he was presented to the Masters on the day of his birth, they'd had no hesitation in bestowing their blessing on him with more than the simple nod of acceptance that all babies received. When his parents had placed him on the altar before the Masters at merely hours old, as all babies were, Ran and Shaw had enveloped him with the rainbow fire, something only ever bestowed on the grown, those that had a since of their own inner selves, and had proven themselves pure of hearts.

The High priests kept an eye on him. Always, waiting for the day he would show to them what the masters had seen- Lóngwěi makes this a very hard wait, what with his constant attitude for all things authority.

When it comes to the child of Fire Nation Nobility, well… there were choices. There had been three marriages most recently, with spouses all trying for an heir. One was two women- one, well bred and kind, the other a low ranking, if still respected, general in the army. It would be a lovely household to grow up in, no doubt.

The second was of two heirs of well established merchant families, new money and very young. They'd been married in their late teens, because there had been a pregnancy scare, and they were so in love, but when it was apparent there was either no child to begin with, or they had lost it, they began trying again with passion. Any child they had would be surely well loved.

And then there was Prince Ozia and his new bride, Lady Ursa, great granddaughter of Avatar Roku… truth be told, Agni thought that was the worst choice if he was truly choosing based on the quality of life the child would have, Ozai was a cruel young man, Agni knew, but… well, he was choosing a family based political opportunity, and where would be a better place to plant a child for such purposes that right into the Royal family? It's a hard decision to make, but Agni makes it non the less.

Zuko grows up miserable and stressed except when he spends a quiet moment with his mother by the turtle duck pond. He doubts himself in everything, and shows far too much kindness for his father's liking.

Lady Teinhia has less trouble finding a loving mixed family than she'd been expecting. It turns out the people living in the colonies, whether descendants of earth or fire, have already well established themselves as a cohesive community. She finds a family in a prosperous town near a river in the north. The man and woman already have one child, a little earthbending bending girl, and Lady Teinhia feels she can entrust them with one more.

They name him Jeong-Hui, and he's a rambunctious little boy. Three years behind his sister means nothing once Jeong-Hui can run steady enough to keep up, and he has no trouble in finding trouble for them. He has a stubbornness to him that is all Earth, refusing to admit he's a non-bender no matter how many times he fails to move a rock like his sister and mother, or produce a flame like his father.

It's very clear to his parents that Jeong-Hui feels left out from his family, and at age seven, his father presents him with a bow and quiver full of arrows, telling him if he puts as much determination and energy into mastering the bow and arrows as he does, well, everything else, when he's sixteen, his father will personally take him down the river to the Pohuai Stronghold himself and inlist Jeong-Hui and the Yuyan Archer's training program.

Jeong-Hui takes to the bow and arrow with little grace at first, but strong determination.

Oma and Shu choose a newlywed couple, who'd both lived in Ba Sing Se all their lives to give a child for the cluster. They're both incredibly hard working, and though they live with very little to their name, and they were not looking to have a child, Jin is still welcome and well loved.

Jin grows up in a small one bedroom apartment in the lower ring, and while they live payday to payday, Jin knows she is luckier than most.

She makes a friend with a refugee girl in their building when she's six. When she visits their equally small apartment, it's practically empty. There's only one futon, and no couch in the living room, and Jin learns the reason is because they couldn't take anything with them when they fled the Fire Nation, and that's when Jin learns about the war. And then when she told her parents about what her friend had told her about the world outside the wall, they'd hissed at her to be quiet, and to never ever speak about the war, that the Dai Li would come and arrest them if they overheard her.

When she's eight, she notices her friend doesn't invite her over anymore, that they only play in the courtyard, or at Jin's house, and she notices her friend getting thinner and thinner. Jin's parents never had a tendency to sugar coat things. They told her that he friend's family likely didn't have a much to eat, and so they started inviting her friend over for dinner, and feeding her lunch when she spent the day playing with Jin, and her few toys (that were still many more than her friend had) they also tended to send food home with Jin's friend, and Jin knows everyone knows what going on, but no one says anything, and her friends gains some weight, so she really couldn't care less.

Jin gets an apprenticeship with a tailor at nine, which mostly consists of cleaning the shop from top to bottom every day, and threading the needles her elderly teacher's shaky finger couldn't. At nine and a month she realised that her teacher doesn't even know Jin's name, let alone has the good enough far sight to recognize Jin from her friend the day her friend had walked with her to work. That day, Jin shoves her friend in front of her without a second thought, and tells her to have a good day at work.

Her parents are a little frustrated with her when she comes home and tells them what she'd done, because it wasn't as if they didn't need the money too, but if people in the lower rings are treated like second class citizens, refugees are third class. They'll find something else for Jin, and really, who could punish such kindness?

The other child in the south, Oma and Shu give to wealthy merchants, who they think will have the means to spoil their child, in hope of making up for the lack of many things Jin misses out on.

Toph however, is born blind and her parents smother her in worry, hiding her from everything. They get what they wish for in that she knows a life untouched by war, but she also lives a life untouched by much of the world.

But she is rebellious, confident and  _ smart. _ She learns to earthbend with the badgermoles, and learns to fight in the arena, and if she isn't a happy socialite, she is a happy little sneak.

Gyatso's child near the North is a child of a Mechanistic, a man who looks to the future, and a woman, a descendant of his people, who fancies herself a historian, and buries herself in books.

When Teo is three, tragedy strikes. His mother is lost in a flood that wipes out they're village, and Teo loses the use of his legs. While Gyatso had hesitated to choose the Mechanist and his wife, as the Mechanists ways were hardly in line with the Air Nomad's ideals and traditions, he couldn't have been more glad for it when he see the things the Mechanist build for his son, so that Teo is never left behind. Teo loves the air, and finds his airbending the first time he flies, at age eight. On pure instinct he throws out a hand to correct the angle of his flight and startles when a gust of wind responds. Naturally he tells everyone, and a few adults nod, and that's when the secret comes out.

Many in the village were descendants of the northern Air Nomads from this very temple. And, well, Teo isn't the only airbender there. At least half the adults were, and all of the other children discovered their talents the same as Teo, as they flew through the air. Its marvelous, and those that had managed to save hidden family heirlooms that consisted of airbending scroll (and that was all they had, there was nothing left unburned in the temple, they'd checked) where happy to share their knowledge of technics, and help Teo modify them for himself.

Teo kept his memory of his mother alive by archiving his and his people's journey of rediscovery of the Air, and lived a very happy life.

In the hopes of keeping his chosen child safe, Monk Gyatso chooses the other child will live in the largest of the hidden Air Nomad settlement, because it is the farthest east one could go if they were hiding from the Fire Nation.

This settlement lived on the same island, South of the Eastern Air Temple, making their home in a series of coastal sea caves, were they had plenty of room for flying but were safe on all sides from prying eyes- not that there was ever anything more than the occasion Earth Kingdom ship, but they know the stories of the Earth kingdom Mercenaries, the pirates their grandparents told them about, that rounded up and stole away any Air Nomad they could find, to sell them to the Fire Nation. No. They're safe in the caves.

Luyu is born to a mother she loves, and three fathers she loves, and she grows up wanting for nothing. She grows up supported and accepted, even when she tells her family she's not a boy, and she leaves her training with the monks to study bending with the nuns. Not that there's much of a difference she can tell, they're all learning the same things really, but their ancestors used to have temples where the boys and girls grew up in different one before they earned their mastery tattoos, and she supposes it's just a small bit of tradition.

Many of her friends like to talk big about going to the outside world one day, of traveling the world like their ancestors, but Luyu has taken the horror stories far too close to heart, and it's rare she can even be coaxed out of the caves and onto a small fishing boat for a day with on of her fathers. No, Luyu is perfectly happy in the safety of the caves, thank you very much.

But inside the caves though, she still manages to find potential for danger, refusing to ever fly as high as the others, unless there was water benether her, or exploring too deeply into caves. Even though every single tunnel in every single cave of their settlement had been thoroughly explored and made safe over the last hundred years. No, if Luyu didn't know what lay ahead of her, she put it behind her and walked the other way.

Most of the time her friends teased her for being a fraidy cat-owl, but they never left her out if they could help it.

Once when Luyu was eight though, a boy who was  _ not _ one of her friends had been making fun of her for real, and after a small argument, he'd bet her she couldn't beat him in a race through the tunnel paths that lead to the outside, up into the forests that covered the cliffs where their caves resided. Luyu had bet him she could, and in her brief moments of determination, she had almost won. The path they used was wide enough for them both to fly with their gliders, and they'd been neck in neck the whole time, but when she reached just far enough she could see the light of the sun up ahead, she panicked. She landed hard and only stood there shaking and staring at the sunlight. The bully had flown past her with ease, calling her a pig-chicken as he blew up a dust storm around her. Luyu had stood there for quite some time, waiting for him to come back, and when the boy never did, she forced herself to walk, one careful, shaking, step at a time, toward the exit.

When she finally reached far enough she could see the exit more clearly, she found herself watching the back of the boy who'd been so audaciously mocking her, standing in the tiny mouth of the opening, refusing to take another step himself. "It's scary,  _ isn't it" _ she had said and she'd watch him nod. Then he turned around and came back into the cave, giving her a view of just what he'd been looking at.

The forest was hardly a forest, all the trees that grew there were tiny and far spread, and surrounded by the fallen charred corpses of their fellows. There were skeletons littering every inch of the ground, some were dressed in fire nation army uniform, and some were dressed in what would have once been vibrant yellows and oranges. It was a battlefield!

Luyu takes the boy's hand and pulls him away, back down the tunnel until the light has faded.

When the get back the boy surprises her by telling everyone Luyu wasn't as big a pig-chicken as he'd through, and that she'd won the bet, by reaching the outside first, and per the terms of the bet, he lets her have one of his owl-cats new babies when they're old enough.

They're friends after that.

Wan Shi Tong is meticulous in his choice, he evaluated everyone on Kyoshi island, even those who were in no position to be having children, and were therefore no option at all.

Suki's family is perfect, she's the only child of two only children, her mother, the leader of a team of Kyoshi Warriors, and her father a fisherman. She grows up well educated and very well mannered, and by eight, she knows she will follow in her mother' footsteps and lead her own team of Kyoshi warriors in defending their island from the outside war.

The Mother Of Faces collaborates with Monk Gyatso to choose her child's family. There are three within the Fire Nation, and the merit of each need to be evaluated.

Well, really, the merit of one. The other two have every little to differentiate themselves from each other, two small families on the outskirts of their towns, on two of the outer isles. Bother would be excellent choices, farming families with plenty of money, and privacy.

The third one is dangerous. The woman is a descendant of an escaped Nomad from the western temple, she's skilled in her bending, and learned in the history and traditions, and clever in her secret keeping, her husband of twenty-six year is the only living soul that knows.

Truly, they're perfect, except that they live in Caldera, they're nobility, and well known in the Fire Lords court. To have yet another child of the cluster, and an airbender no less, so close to Prince Ozai's child in the cluster, was such a risk to the whole family.

But yet, could that child not befriend Ozai's child? Help him, and be there for him?

What it really came down to, was that Ty Lee's parents had been trying for a child since they'd married at fifteen, and now at forty-one, they were desperate, for just one baby. They prayed to and begged the spirits, and the Mother of Faces knew she was give her chose family multiples, and would it not be cruel to give that to anyone else?

Ty Lee is the second born of seven identical daughters (and the mother of faces fittingly  _ facepalms _ the day the seven are born. That was far to many children than she'd meant to give the couple, but they're happy, so what could be done)

Ty Lee and her sisters understand the importance of secrets, and practice their bending only in the sub basement of they're Manor house. They learn chi blocking, something that most Monk and Nuns, who spent their lives happily secured away in their temple, had frowned upon, but which the truly nomadic Air Nomads had understood was a necessary practice. One may always wish to avoid conflict, or the pain of others, but that didn't always mean they  _ could. _

When Ty Lee and her sisters start school at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, they're warned not to draw any more attention to themselves than they could. Keeping this in mind, they talk little in class, and never correct people when they address them as one of their sisters, and they don't participate in any extracurriculars. They're all good children and for two years, this is a perfect system.

Ty Lee hates it. She hates the way people have to watch her, and her sisters to see if they can guess which one she is, she hates when people ask which one she is, she hates that she can't join the acrobatics club, she hates that she's unremarkable.

When she's seven, Ty Lee does something she shouldn't. When she's seven, Princess Azula, granddaughter of Fire Lord Azulon and fifth in line for the throne, starts her public education, and Ty Lee does what she should. Not. Do. She befriends the princess.

When her mother finds out, she wants to pull all the children from school, and run. She'd never though one of the royals would enter school with her children- not a one of the other four princes had joined the Fire Academy's school for boys after all (they never learn that this was princess Ursa's decision in hope of socializing her odd daughter)- but their mother knows how suspicious that would look. She knows there would be an inquiry. There was nothing she could do but lecture and lecture and lecture Ty Lee in exactly what she could and could not do and say around Princess Azula.

Ty Lee loves going to the palace. Azula and she make friends with Mai, who's a year older than Ty Lee, and a lot of the time they end up roping Zuko into playing games with them. Ty Lee likes Zuko, he was born on her birthday, which was really cool, and he was really nice.

A lot nicer than Azula. It only takes until Ty Lee is nine to realise what a mistake it had been to gain the attention of the Princess. She was manipulative and scary and mean. 

One day she'd even taunted Ty Lee's crush on her brother by setting an apple on her head on fire, and laughing when Zuko had tackled her into the fountain. Ty Lee had wanted to cry, not because of what Zuko had done, that she had that was silly and sweet and cute, but that Azula, who was supposed to be her friend, had tried to embarrass her.

From then on, she really wished she'd listened to her mother and kept her head down, even the recognition that came with everyone always knowing it was Ty Lee, that was standing next to the princess, wasn't worth it.

At least she didn't think her life could get any more complicated.

And then she turned ten. And Zuko turned ten. And apparently ten other children around the world turned ten


	3. The Meeting Of The Minds

To say there is chaos is an understatement. Throughout the day, what is supposed to be for each of them nothing more than a celebration of their tenth birthday, they randomly have these strange kids popping up, and they're all freaking out. Zuko and Ty Lee are the first to kinda grasp that it's not all in their heads, and that all the other people have to be real people too, not just ghost or hallucinations, because they both no that no, Zuko is not in Ty Lee's bedroom, and Ty Lee is not in Zuko's, but yes the other person is real.

Chí kinda waits for a few hours for everyone to have their little freak out, and once everyone's done yelling at each other, he grabs all of their attention, and tells them he knows what's going on, and that he can explain.

He shows them all the Banyan Tree, and explains how it's the center of the Swamp, how every tree in the swamp appears separate on the surface but is connected at the roots. He explains that just like the swamp, they're all connected, and that he's always known the spirits had a plan for him, and maybe not any of them specifically, but he knew there would be others, so, you know, this is all a part of a plan and isn't some fluke of the universe.

No one exactly likes this answer, but it explains enough that they don't freak out when they get an unexpected visit from each other after that.

So they've all got other kids from around the world in their heads then. Huh.

Who tells and who doesn't:

Chí tells right away, the Tribe celebrates, and congratulates him.

Zuko and Ty Lee absolutaly the fuck do not tell anyone.

Luyu tells her parents, who bring it up to the elders, it's agreed that as long as Luyu can keep it a secret that Airbenders are still alive, or at the very least, the location of their city, everything should be fine. They don't tell the general public.

Katara almost tells, but her tribe is often stressed enough as it is, and she would hate to add to that when it's her personal mission to alleviate stress, at least among her family. Plus, the only real secret she has to keep is from Zuko, that she's a waterbender, so that he doesn't send the Raiders back. Other than that it doesn't matter. Sokka eventually figures out something's going on, and Katara lies saying it's ghosts, or spirits or something, not real, living people that she sometimes is caught muttering to.

Lóngwěi doesn't tell, he's prideful, and doesn't want to admit to his people that he might be a liability to their safety, when he's always thought he was spirit blessed and someday going to be their greatest asset.

Yue doesn't tell. She doesn't have a very good reason, she just, doesn't want to. It's not like being a princess puts her in a position to know many important secrets away, when being a princess means being a _girl,_ and if her dad and the men found out, they might forbid her talking to the others, and this is something that is finally herself to have the first decision over. She won't let anyone take that from her.

Jin tells her best friend, a month later when they both have the day off and her parents don't, so that they can hide under the futon to keep their whispered voices muffled from any listening ears. Her friend thinks it's the neatest thing, especially that they're all on the outside of the walls and can tell all about the war.

Jeong-Hui tells his sister. She almost believes him until he says he can talk to Prince Zuko, and it takes a lot of convincing before she believes him for real.

Suki tells her mom and dad, she doesn't mention zuko though, and it's agreed it needs to stay a secret from the rest of the village, and that it's probably fine. Probably a blessing. She should definitely keep a watch on the others in the cluster though.

Toph doesn't tell of course. Who would she tell, her parents? Fat chance, they'd just freak out and add more rules to her already suffocating life.

Teo tells his dad, who seems to kind of wilt at the news (the poor mans already for the Fire Nation War Minister breathing down his throat). Teo can tell it stresses him out, but ultimately the Mechanist tells him to "keep certain secrets secret." he's talking about the airbending of course.

How everyone generally feels about each other on any given Tuesday.

Everybody likes Chí. It's really hard not to like him when he's constantly stepping in and breaking up arguments, and making them feel listened to and understood. The closest there is to dislike is that Lóngwéi thinks he's an annoying goody two shoes, but even then it's hard to dislike him when he keeps Katara off his back when she thinks Lóngwěi is doing something wrong (ie a harmless prank ("it's not harmless, its mean!")). Chí might be a little jealous of just how spirit touched Yue is.. not that he'd admit that.

Lóngwěi... Everyone has some kinda beef with Lóngwěi except maybe Toph who's been a willing accomplice on a number of pranks just because it annoys Sugar Queen, and Jin who just doesn't end up connecting with him all that often. Teo thinks they _could_ get along, maybe.

Katara, she and Yue are like best friends, Yue really admires her independence, and her basic life skill (Yue has no clue how to sow, but Katara makes it look so easy!) and Katara admires her cultured grace (dancing? So smoothly? There are specific steps? Amazing). Katara refuses to interact with any of the Fire Nation kids on principle of them being the enemy. Everyone thinks Katara's a little nagging, but catch them calling her in to back them up in an argument before they call Chí to break it up.

Zuko pretty much just tries to avoid them all, accept Ty Lee. He and Yue have a mutual agreement not to pry into each other's politics (not that either of them, as forth in line for their throne and a ten year old little girl respectively, have much specific knowledge of their own politics anyway).

Suki has a distrust of the Fire Nation kids for the most part, but doesn't actively try to shut them out. She ends up getting along best with Ty Lee, Teo, Yue and Jin. She thinks Luyu and her would be friends if the quiet girl wasn't so keen on keeping her secrets. One day she's gonna find Lóngwěi and kick his ass in real life, not just in their occasional cross-world psychic spars (it's definitely sparing, not arguments that got too heated)

Teo likes Jeong-Hui the most, and they could talk for hours. Jeong-Hui shows Teo all his favorite spots in the forest and hills around his town, and lets Teo run around until they're completely breathless. They could talk for hours and Teo unabashedly tells Jeong-Hui all about his dad's invention, and Jeong-Hui says he likes Teo's dad's crossbow invitation the best.

Jeong-Hui really, really, _really_ wants to be friends with Princes Zuko, he just thinks that would be the neatest thing in the world, to be friends with a prince, but, as we all know, Zuko is an awkward Turtleduck, and really has no idea how to react to someone wanting to be his friend. Jeong-Hui doesn't have much of a problem with most of the cluster, but if he had to pick someone to like the least, it would probably be Katara.

Luyu doesn't make much connection with anyone, she likes Chí, and Ty Lee, and Princess Yue, but she never really tries to connect with them. When she visits with anyone, and they subsequently visit her, she sits down on the spot and closes her eyes and refuses to do more than the amount of talking it takes to not be impolite.

Toph likes Teo, and Suki, and she likes Katara even if she'd never admit it. She doesn't actually really see much to dislike about Lóngwěi. The first time she visits with someone and isn't in the middle of freaking out, she looks at everything, and everyone but Luyu pretty much indulges her in this every time they visit. Her favorite color is definitely green.

Jin enjoys her visits with everyone really, she loves learning about all of them and how different the world is from how they're taught inside the walls. The only danger is they all have to talk out loud when they visit each other, to communicate, they can't read thoughts, and Jin is no exception, she has to be really careful not to speak out loud in public, or even too loudly at home, least the Dia Li overhear and take her away.

Ty Lee likes most of the kids in the cluster, but she doesn't like being _in_ the cluster, she's spent her whole life as part if a matched set with her sisters, and even disregarding the danger of anyone finding out she's an airbender, she doesn't like that the spirits have added her to this set too, so it's hard to form an emotional attachment to any of them on her end. Accept Zuko. Her crush starts to get stronger as she gets to spend more time with him alone, away from the eyes of the court, or the eyes of his sister.

Yue mostly just likes Katara and the other girls, and really doesn't know what to think of the boys, she'd never spent so much time with boys before. Jeong-Hui is fun, he takes her on adventures with Teo, and tells her about his ambition to join the Yuyan Archers, and she tells him about having wanted to join the army as a healer before she realised she wasn't allowed. Toph says she should just run away, like Toph does sometimes.

Things are tense for the first few months, with all the kids holding back from each other, and Chí knows that something's wrong, that this isn't how it's supposed to be. In his dreams there was always a deeper connection meant to tie them all together, that more than just taste, touch, sight, hearing and smell were supposed to be shared between them, they were supposed to be about the feel what the other felt, and empathize with each other, and he feels like it's his responsibility to make that happen, but he doesn't know how. He tries to pull them all together often, so they could bond, or he could talk about spirit stuff, but nothing catches their attention, nothing draws them together like he knows they need to be.

Until one day, almost six months after their birthday.

Jin had learned about the siege on the Outer Wall from Zuko, and not from a single refugee, and she knew a lot of refugees. It's not really a surprise exactly, that she didn't learn about it from within the walls, but it did explain the influx of tired and injured, but ultimately happy, soldiers that had flooded the Lower ring weeks ago, drinking themselves silly one night in celebration. It also explained how unusually well funded and luxurious the spring equinox festival in the Lower Rings had been that year.

But back to the tragedy. In learning about the siege of the Outer Wall, all the cluster learns that Prince Lu Ten of the fire nation, second in line for the throne, was dead. Zuko's grief was palpably felt by any of them who visited him on the week of his cousin's death, and they all give respectful condolences.

Except Katara, who doesn't even pretend to be unhappy that the Fire Nation lost a battle (look she's ten and grieving and doesn't have a lot of worldly or social experience, no one thinks she's right for it, even Lóngwěi).

Chí, while genuinely saddened by this, was also quietly happy that the Cluster was starting to emotionally connect. But it still wasn't enough, no one could feel the other's without being currently visiting them, and the visits still had no rhyme or reason to them as far as they could tell.

The flood gates were leaking, but they'd yet to be opened.

But then it gets worse. The day Ozai calls for an audience with Firelord Azulon, everyone in the cluster is flittering in and out of Zuko's space, apparently called to him by his nerves like a bubble-fly to honey. They try to stay out of it during the actual meeting, but when Azula pulls him behind the curtain, and he hears what his father is suggesting, well, there are thirteen little faces watching in shared horror from behind the curtains.

Zuko wants to run when his grandfather says his dad has to kill him, but too many in the cluster are frozen where they stand and he's out voted.

So he hears it when his father says "If you wish it father, it will be done."

Zuko wants to vomit, many of the cluster are shouting, a few are crying, Zuko finally gets a grip on himself and runs.

He runs away then, until he finds his mother and he cries and tells her what happened.

And things proceed like canon from there, accept that just like everyone was there for the decree he had to die, they're there with Zuko running around in the morning looking for him mom, and that hits home for Katara and Teo the most, who have lost their moms, but at the same time, they're all freaking out, and like, they all go seaking their parents, because _they_ can and it's just an all around sad day.

The floodgates were opened.

No one pesters Luyu or Ty Lee or Lóngwěi about what they're hiding, because when the others visit them, they can finally feel how nervous the other feels, they finally get it. When Toph is getting lectured because she "did something reckless'' (ei walked off the garden path on her own and "got a little lost" (got caught)) they'll feel it and go weather it with her. When Jeong-Hui is frustrated because he can't get this one tricky moving target, someone will show up and if they can't help, at least be a calming presence. If some two of them are having a particularly good day, or a particularly bad day, they'll just end up visiting the other outside of their own control, because they're so insync they can't help it.

They finally learn to leave politics out of their relations with each other all together.

The first secret blown is Katara's waterbending. She basically decides trusting Zuko is worth the risk, maybe they have a conversation by the turtleduck pond when Zuko is sulking after a bad bending session and Katara's all, trying to be comforting, "at least you have someone to teach you. I'm the last waterbender in the south pole and I don't have a clue how to even begin."

"Well, why don't you ask Yue? She's a waterbender. I bet she's been taught by the best."

And Katara's all "she's a good healer, but the Northern Tribe doesn't let their women fight, and I want to learn to fight."

And Zuko's like "That's dumb, my sister is the best fighter and bender I've ever seen, and she's a girl, plus don't you all believe waterbending comes from the moon spirit, and isn't the moon spirit a woman?"

And Katara gets all excited and she and Yue get to talking and Katara convinces Yue to go try pleading their case to her dad, but Chief Arnook doesn't buy it, but then katara comes in all righteous anger saying like "you know what, waterbending was a woman's art before you greedy little men got your hand on it, I'm blessed by the moon herself (pretending to be Yue, but also lowkey she feels blessed by the moon to be a waterbender in the south after they were basically extinct), who are you above her to tell me I can't learn something that is my birth right before it was ever yours!? Somebody will teach me what I was destined to learn!" By the end of it Katara was mostly talking for herself, and she was throwing her arms all around, and basically what she did to Aang's iceberg in the show, she does a little worse to the palace throne room.

Katara gets what she wants, Master Pakku teaches her and Yue waterbending (Yue doesn't really have the passion for it, and mostly takes a back seat to Katara during lessons, but she's not totally checked out. Her and Katara even spar sometimes, if they think their sparring partner was going easy on them during actual training because Yue's the princess and girl). But Master Pakku is still snobby and sexist and annoying, and while he seems most of the time like he's more trying to beat them down with too-high demands for perfection, he doesn't teach them anything about the more spiritual side of bending. They get some from Yue's healing lessons, but Chí is the one that comes in and says "no no no, you're missing something, I don't know why he doesn't tell you, but what you're getting wrong is this:" and proceeds to start attending waterbending lessons for them with his tribe, where lessons aren't just physical, but they discuss the theory of waterbending, like how it's all about adaptation and change and fluidity in your movements. Pakku gets lowkey pissed when Yue starts to improve even quicker, and he recognizes a few Foggy Swamp moved that he has no idea how she learned.

Toph is the one that gets all experement-y after that and is all "hey anyone wanna see if we can bend other elements from our own bodies?" and it turns out, no, Toph can't Firebend or Waterbend in her own body, not even when Lóngwěi tries so hard to get her to firebend that he blasts the tree that's actually in front of him on fire unintentionally.

But of course that doesn't mean they can't learn each other's style of bending and adapt it for their own bending.

Jeong-Hui thinks this is the best thing ever and has a field day bending with Toph.

Jin is the one to figure out that, even if they can share some skill sets- Jeong-Hui's aiming accuracy or Ty Lee's own excellent balancing skills for instance- like with bending, they can't share everything. She learns this when she tries one of Ty Lee's acrobatics routines, that she knew just as by heart as Ty Lee, and failed miserably, being entirely too inflexible and having nowhere near the same amount of muscle strength as the other girl.

When she asks Ty Lee if she can teach Jin her routine for flexibility, so that she can do the acrobatics too, Ty Lee is nervous but tells her she really doesn't want to share her acrobatics with Jin. She explains that acrobatics was the thing she did that made her different from her sisters, and since the cluster has an even easier time sharing things, if this is something she can keep she would rather do that.

Chí dislikes the idea of keeping things from each other, he's always viewed the idea that they were connected because they were supposed to share everything. He alway thought that was the point, that they would each bring something to the table and share it, that they were meant to make each other stronger.

He and Ty Lee actually get into an argument about it, he insisting she should share, and her refusing, saying like, this whole cluster thing was just making her life more complicated, and it wasn't fair to take things that made her herself and make those thing less hers, that, why would anyone look to Ty Lee for anything if someone else could do it.

She gets really upset, and starts crying, and Zuko starts yelling and Chí, cause like that's his best friend, maybe secret girlfriend, and fuck anyone that fucks with her (accept Azula but also Azula they just have to wait till Zuko's Firelord) and an interesting new line is drawn in the sand as they all take side about sharing skills.

Zuko, Ty Lee, Katara, Lóngwěi, and Luyu think they shouldn't have to share or be expected to share with each other.

Chí, Yue and Suki think they should share, that they're clustered for that exact reason, and it's their responsibility to share.

Jeong-Hui, Teo, Jin, and Toph like sharing, but they don't think it's a matter of duty, so they argue for the right to ask to be taught something, but also argue that no one should have to do anything.

Toph especially doesn't care what the spirits think, they can get over here and explain things clearly if they want the Cluster to do something.

Katara might say something like everyone agrees to leave secrets alone for Luyu and Lóngwěi, so why can't they leave personal skills alone, it's not like Jin needs to be an acrobat.

Then Yue point out that Katara directly benefits from sharing, having learned how to heal from Yue directly, and now using they're link to learn waterbending through her.

Ultimately it's a short argument. They yell and they say some mean things, and then realise things are getting out of control when they go from arguing points to name calling, and chill and apologize, and finally come to the understanding that they can't help but share almost everything. Sure, they can't read each other's exact thoughts, and they're limited in what they can _do_ physically, but knowledge and emotions flow freely between all of them, muscles may need to be built, if say, Jin was going to be an acrobat too, but even without the muscle strength, she already had Ty Lee's muscle memory. The ones who don't like it can dislike it all they want but unless they can figure out how to blocke the others out, it is what it is.

This devolves into a lot of complaining about the spirits and their mysterious plans.

They decide to work together to see if they can't figure it out, leaving the matter of sharing at "don't get mad if someone one asks, and don't get mad if someone one doesn't want to share."

Chí and Yue spend a lot of time meditating, by the Banyan Tree and the Koi Pond respectively. Zuko looks into spirits in the royal library. Toph asks her tutors questions.

They get absolutely nowhere.

Teo is the next to blow his secret. Really it was inevitable, he wasn't really trying to keep it a secret after Katara revealed her waterbending and Prince Zuko didn't run to tell his dad.

And oh BOY when Jeong-Hui pops in for a playdate and finds himself flying, you can BET he lost his head from excitement. Teo had to land them quickly or else Jeong-Hui was gonna crash them.

And he's so excited he calls everyone, even though it's early enough on their side of the world that it's barely past midnight for Zuko, Ty Lee and Lóngwěi. Everyone shows up, and everyone sees the other kids flying all around the Northern Air Temple, and just. There's a lot going on, and they all give themselves a headache. Teo tells them why they're were there, and how they're descendants of Air Nomads, could even easily be descendant of Nomads from well before the genocide. Everyone's amazed, everyone's happy to know the Air Nation wasn't totally whipped out.

Luyu starts crying, and laughing and jumping up and down, not because she didn't know there were other air Colonies out there, but because she wasn't the only one in the cluster, because it suddenly wasn't such a big burden to shoulder. Infact, suddenly, knowing that as long as she never let's them discover her Colonies location, she doesn't have to bear such a secret anymore.

So she just kind of blurts it out.

"I'm an airbender too!"

And there's even more excitement, cause you know, eveyones like "ah okay, so that's been your secret" and someone asks, you know, are there more of you, where are you?" And shes like "yeah that's a secret still"

Then Teo's like "y'all wanna go flying?" So Teo takes them all flying all day. Luyu freaks out at first cause it's the highest she's ever flown, she's like "watch out, be careful, pay attention to the currents!", but eventually Teo earns her trust with it and she's like "holey heck this is amazing!!!!"

Ty Lee enjoys flying much more quietly. It's the first time she's EVER flown, the closest she's ever gotten is jumping around trees when her family visits their "cousins" on the outer isles. But while that may be fun, it's got nothing on this, it's the most free and connected to her element she's ever felt, and it gives her the courage to spill her secret.

But not then. Not to everyone one just then. No, it gives her the courage to tell Zuko.

She waits until the next day, when she and he can visit alone. She goes down to the sub basement, and finds him. She she finds him in the middle of training, and so she waits, except then Zuko seems to be getting frustrated with his tutors, because they're not telling him how to fix what he's doing wrong, just that he's doing it wrong, and Ty Lee steps in to help.

They catch the tutor off guard, because he's never fought against an airbender, or airbender technicnics, and airbender techniques are surprisingly efficient when you replace the air with fire. The tutor begrudgingly declares Zuko the winner of their spare, and says they can end it there for the day, but tells Zuko next time he better fight using traditional firebending techniques, and not whatever that was.

Once they're alone, Zuko asks her exactly what that was? She tells him to go somewhere they'll be alone, and waits until he's retreated back to his rooms.

Then she shows him the sub basement, with its many dummies marked with chi paths, and the shelves full of scrolls that are obviously marked with Air symbols, and most interesting of all are the many tall, sturdy planks of wood, arranged in a circle, with several scattered in between. Zuko walks straight for the scrolls, and runs his finger along the shelf, but stops himself from pulling one out 

"You're an airbender too?"

"Yeah…"

"Your family is really brave, living in the capital."

"Yeah… My great grandma was a kid during the year of Sozin's Comet, and one of the soldiers smuggled some of the younger girls out of the Western Temple, I think there were maybe ten of them. Most he used his connections to smuggle out to the Earth Kingdom, but my great grandma, he grew to love her, and he adopted her, so yeah, my family ended up here in the capital."

"No one suspected anything? That it was weird he just suddenly had a daughter?"

"My grandma says things were different that early into the war. Most people hated what Fire Lord Sozin had ordered the army to do, so, no one said anything, just happily agreed the Captain's niece from the outer isles was a very nice young girl."

"I'm glad they did that."

"Me too."

"You know you're my best friend, right? And that I would never ever tell anyone about any of you?"

"Yeah I know. I trust you the most." And they have a little psychic hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanna put a little note here, about Toph and Teo, I've seen plenty of things were people born with disabilities are asked "if you could have your disability go away, would you want it to?" and the disabled person go "nah I'm good" and I know that like, disabled people live perfectly good and happy lives, I'm not trying to imply like, Teo and Toph are finally happy to walk and see or anything, I just figure, you know, they get the chance they'd probably enjoy it, and then at the end of a visit they go right back to what's normal and good for them. Sort of just, like how Jeong-Hui loves using the other's bending and then goes right back to using his bow and arrows just fine.


	4. The Tale Of Yanli

So the cluster never really get anywhere with figuring out why the spirits melded their souls, there's nothing in any of the scattered bits of history the Airbenders have, or in the Dragon Bone Catacombs Zuko can get to, or the secret library hidden in the glaciers Yue can sneak into, and none of Toph's tutors have any idea where to begin when she started asking about spirit tales.

The closest anyone ever get to the subjects of "spiritual connections across the world" and "spirit intervention" and "born spirit blessed" are stories of the avatar and his helpers, the yāorén*, but none of them can bend more than one element, so none of them are some sudo-avatar or avatar helper.

After several months of no luck, Jin suggests one place none of them have thought of

The Dia Li. There's no way they don't have access to the most information in the city, and the only other library in the whole city Jin hasn't tried is the University's (there was no way the school would let a dirty lower ring girl onto there clear prestigious property).

Jin isn't a very good Earthbender, in fact most of her fighting skills are inherited from Toph, but at only eleven, she isn't beyond hopeless. The Dia Li might just take her in if she can pass the intelligence tests. And with eleven other minds behind her, how could she fail?

When she suggests this, her cluster freaks out. Even they know going anywhere near the Dia Li puts Jin in more danger than most. They all say it's not worth the risk, especially pointing out that all her friends, especially her best friend, are refugees. She'd likely be expected to spy on them. It wasn't far to risk them either.

Jin insisted that, don't they need to know? This might be the last place they can look!

Everyone kinda has the realization that, no they don't really need to know if it's going to get them hurt. 

So they spend the next year or so just, not worrying about it. They just have fun, waiting for the spirits to speak. They learn about each other's cultures too, like how the Fire Nation celebrates the summer solstice, the Earth Kingdom, the spring equinox, and the colonies do both. They learn the Northern Water Tribe celebrated the Winter Solstice with each city hosting its own parade on the day of the solstice,and the South by having a large gathering of the small towns coming together for the whole week of the solstice. Air celebrated the Fall Equinox. In the Northern Air temple, they'd done little more that have a large dinner, Ty Lee and her family said a few special prayers and did a bit of meditation, and sometimes their mom would risk making a simple fruit pie recipe from the single cookbook her ancestors had smuggled out, if its ingredients were nondescript enough to not raise eyebrows in a Fire Nation market. Luyu was the proudest to show off how her colony's celebrated. They had prayers and a potluck among family and friend groups in the morning, and the entity of the afternoon was spent watching and cheering for those that had achieved mastery that year as they received their tattoos.

In the past, every time someone achieved mastery, they received their own celebration, with weeks of designing a tattoo with one's friends and family, before the full-body design was etched into the skin. Now however, it was different. Everyone only received a small almost invisible line in the vague shape of an arrow head, if one was looking for it, on the inside of their wrist. It was always done in skin colored tones and could be mistaken as a scare by any outsider who saw it, but was easily recognized as an Airbender tattoo by anyone who knew. It was used by all the colonies to indicate to others, on the rare occasion two nomads met from two different colonies in the same Earth Kingdom town, who they were. The new practice had been combined with the Fall Festival near the beginning, when younger generations had felt they missed what their parents had had when they only got the small tattoo, what they're parents had told them about, and this was a way of giving them a little something.

After the tattooing, there was a talent show where one could perform anything from airbending to music to animal training tricks and anything else. This portion was the most enjoyable and often lasted easily until the next morning almost every year.

This prompted a little talent show of their own the next day where they each showed off a skill of their own, celebrating their individuality through their connection.

\--

The first time the cluster ever worked together to accomplish a goal with forethought and as a group, was the summer just before they turned twelve.

Zuko woke to crying in the night. It was coming from the servant's entrance to his chambers, and he hesitantly followed it. He found a young maid balled up right at the entrance, and thought she must have been very lost. And maybe very hurt. 

He startled her and she tried to leave but she was hurt and crumbled back down. She tries to say she's sorry for waking him, sorry for disturbing him, she's hysterical.

Zuko, just, sweet baby, closes the servants' door behind him and sits with her. She's like barely 17 maybe, like Zuko would honestly think she was still a kid if he didn't know the palace didn't hire children.

He rubs her back and tells her it's gonna be okay, whatever it is, and like, low-key she smells like Ozai's cologne, Zuko doesn't get that at first. But then he sees the bruises on her neck and her lip is bleeding. And like,,,, Zuko's naive but he hasn't trusted his father since he said he would kill Zuko, (and because obviously with the cluster he had comparisons now, so he knows what loving parents look like and Ozai ain't it) so like, connections get made.

Zuko just kinda says "I hate him too. I hate him so much, it's okay if you hate him."

And like the girl ain't even thinking that she's crying on an eleven year old's shoulder or that he's a Prince or all the trouble she could get in, she just cries and says she hates Ozai and like, says "he's gonna kill me when he finds out. I'm going to die." and that like, kicks Zuko into action cause he's been on that end of Ozai's wrath and just barely escaped.

He's all "finds out what?" And the maid looks up at his tone and kinda realizes who she's talking too and freaks out again, but Zuko's just like "if I can help, let me." But she still refuses to tell him. So Zuko just like, skips it and goes to "He won't just let you quit… Can you run away?

And she's like "I don't know where I'd go!?!?"

And Zuko gets an idea, and calls out to Ty Lee. She wakes up quickly (they all do when they're called by each other) and he explains the situation, and asks if her family could smuggle the girl out? Like, if those channels were still open, would Ty Lee's family know them? And Ty Lee's like "yeah we have contingency to get out of the Fire Nation, she could use one,"

And basically she tells the girl through Zuko "be at this place at this time with whatever you ABSOLUTELY need."

The girl thinks the Prince, the son of the man who'd hurt her, is telling her this and she's hesitant for a minute, but then Zuko says again "I HATE him. You have to run away, it's the only way to get away from him."

So she goes the next day and Ty Lee is there with fake identification cards, and this maid, Yanli, is like "A child? Is helping me? It's more likely than I thought?" But the money and the upper class ID are enough to get her on a passenger ship she would have otherwise never been able to afford and she she's off to the outer isles to meet with this girl's "cousin" (this bouncy girl hadn't said "her cousin" in a suspicions way, Yanli just really doubted it was true) in no time. 

Yanli had asked multiple times if Ty Lee was sure she would be safe in the colonies, and its Jin who thinks up the idea that the woman could come to Ba Sing Se, that would be the absolute safest place for her, plus Jin would be there so if she could find the maid, she'd be able to tell them all that she'd made the journey safe. Suki brings up that what Ty Lee is giving her isn't going to be enough to get her all the way to and into Ba Sing Se.

Toph says "fuck it send her south, when she gets to Gaoling I'll get her some more money. I've been stashing some for a run away, so my parents won't even notice it's gone."

So that's what they do. Ty Lee send a letter to her cousin, that should arrive about the same time Yanli does, telling them to send the maid to the port town across the river from the Pohuai Stronghold, that that's where someone else will meet her. There's a couple months where they all worry, with only Ty Lee's cousin's letter as word Yanli had made it onto a ship headed for the colonies.

(Ozai was fucking pissed btw when he's fav toy went missing but jokes on him cause he's trash)

Jeong-Hui begs his dad to let him tag along with him whenever he heads down the river to the large port town on the coast. And it's a bright, sunny, clear, nice day when Jeong-Hui spots Yanli leaving the docks.

And ahhh,,,, downer on the nice day,,,, yeah she's pregnant.

Zuko freaks out the most cause duh,,,, that gonna be Zuko little sibling… Ozai sucks. So they're REALLY glad they were already getting this lady out of the colonies. Jeong-Hui slips away from his father in the crowd, and follows Yanli till she stops at an inn. He approaches her all "hey sis, I was looking for you, I wanna show you something when we get up to the room." and the maid's already been helped by two children already, what the hell, what's a third, and lets the random kid follow her up to her room. Jeong-Hui couldn't spare as much money as Toph could, but he had some good traveling clothes he stole from his mom, some preserved meat, and what coin he could spare. He provided her with a map that would take her out of the colonies through small no name towns that wouldn't have been on any map in the Fire Nation, and tells her once she gets out of the colonies, she can travel by main roads, promising even though she was very obviously Fire Nation, as long as she kept her head down, she wasn't likely to be bothered.

There's another little while when they're waiting for her to reach Gaoling where they all grow a little more panicked everyday, but it's Chí that settles their worries, not Toph, when he spots her on a river boat.

Her and a group of other refugees had been trying to navigate the swamp and had wound up lost. Chí and his tribe said they would happily guide them through the next day, but they would have to stay in their village for the night. This is kind of a lie, they could theoretically have guided them out of the swamp at night, but the tribe knew this was the woman the Chí and his cluster had been helping, and they wanted to give Chí some time to talk with her.

She stayed with Chí and his family that night, and Chí, bless the little angle, can apparently be just as awkward as Zuko. He doesn't know what to say to her.

"You're prettier in person"? No! "Do you hope the baby's a boy or a girl?" She probably didn't even want the baby!

The ex-maid starts off the conversation after dinner, while they're all sitting on the front porch of the family's cabin. She leans in next to him and whispers "I take it you're my next liaison?" With a little smile.

Chí starts, but then turns to her and nods seriously. "Yes. I'm going to come with you to Gaoling too."

"Oh, why's that? No one has accompanied me so far, and I rather thought the dangerous part of the journey was behind me?"

"Well yes, but I actually want to meet who you're meeting with in Gaoling, we've always lived so close but never met." It is true. But also, earlier after Jeong-Hui had sent Yanli off, they'd all come to realize Toph had no way of actually finding the woman unless she happened to talk around Toph, and even then Toph would have a hard to be out of the Beifong Manor grounds and she'd have no idea when to do that. So they'd agreed originally that Chí would come to town when it was suspected Yanli would have made it, and he would locate her with Toph. Things really seemed to be working in the woman's favor too, because Chí and his mom hadn't been planning to head to Gaoling for another week, and now they could escort the woman personally. (The spirits are very much working in Yanli's favor, as a little nudge to the kids that they're doing the right thing)

Once they get to Gaoling, Toph sneaks off and joins them, and BOY do Toph and Chí get overwhelmed.

Zuko and Ty Lee are the only ones that have ever been in the same place, sharing senses at the same time, and both of them experience the world in the same way. Hearing things was easy, picking the direction the sound came from when one hears it from their left, and the other from their right sometimes got confusing. When they looked at the same thing from the opposite side, it was like seeing a memory of something you'd seen all the side of, except the imagine in your head was a hundred times more clear. When they stood or walked next to each other, sometimes they had a tendency to get dizzy or trip, as their legs weren't sure which set of eyes to follow.

But with Toph who felt the world around in all directions to suddenly simultaneously be seeing some of it, and seeing some things she'd never felt, like little bugs flying around, or steam rising off stoves making food in stalls along the marketplace or any other number of things. And for Chí who had never been able to tell a thing about what was behind him without looking. It was completely disorienting.

Toph throws up in an alleyway at one point, and Chí's mom, while rubbing her back, suggests maybe for the day, Chí might keep his eyes closed. They end up wrapping a bit of cloth around Chí's eyes, and he uses his connection with Toph to try and walk with as much confidence as she does through the streets of Gaoling. He does alright as long as he sticks to her side where the "view" was the most accurate.

Yanli connects a few dots. She asks if all the kids she's been seeing have been connected to each other too. And Chí's mom gives the run down while the kids walk a ways ahead. Yanli is like, "So Prince Zuko is connected to them all too?"

"Yeah, the spirits have a plan for this kids, and it's going to be big."

The woman rubs her belly and is all "you must be worried, what the spirits have in store for your child…"

"I am. I never told him, but the Banyan tree gave me a vision the day he was born, of a great fiery battle in which my son would fight. But I'm enjoying every moment I have with him, and I feel I'm raising him strong enough he'll return to me when he's fulfilled his destiny."

They see Yanli off the next day, telling her a girl named Jin would meet her once she made it to Ba Sing Se.

Before Chí and his mom head back to the swamp, they meet Toph in town once again, and the kids practice their combined sight, the others in the clusters joining them in an effort to experience the world the way Toph's senses interact with theirs. After a couple hours of this, Chí's mom surprises them with Earth Rumble tickets (listen, Chí's a mama's boy and tells her EVERYTHING that isn't an explicit secret, she knows Toph is smothered and likes being rough. Chí's mom is gonna let her have a good freaking day).

Toph gets absolutely ENAMORED with the fighting. They figure out it's easy for both She and Chí to watch together with both his eyes and her feet while they're sitting, and Toph absolutely LOVES watching the men kick each other's asses.

Back to the Yanli.

By the time she made it to Full Moon Bay, she was ready to pop, and she'd had a man tailing her for the last 3 towns. She's not exactly sure what she can do about it, except stay with the largest group of refugees she can find, and hope if he does attack her, it's because he's spotted the coin bag the little girl in Goaling had given her, and not because he's an assassin sent by Ozai to execute her.

In the end she manages to slip away in Full Moon Bay, and gets on her farey while the man is still in line for his own ticket.

They make the refugee's entrance into Ba Sing Se a grand affair, as the train seems to circle above the city, giving their passengers an awe inspiring sight, before dropping them off at an unassuming train station.

"Auntie!" She heard a young girl's voice call, and she looked up to see a girl that could only be Jin, standing on the bench to see over the crowd and waving excitedly at her.

Jin hops off the bench and runs up to the woman, hugging her tightly.

"Hello Jin, it's wonderful to see you again!" Yanli says, remember what she'd been told, that Jin would be waiting for her at the train stations for a while before she would actually arrive, and the Dia Li would take notice, would get suspicious if there wasn't some clear connection between the two when they met. The story was that she was Jin's aunt, who she hadn't seen in years.

Jin guides her through the streets of Ba Sing Se effortlessly until they come to a small apartment complex.

"I've been talking with our land Lord, and a couple one floor up from us, their lease expires at the end of spring, so you can move in then. But for now you can stay with us."

Jin telling her parents about her cluster had been… difficult. When the cluster saw Yanli through Jeong-Hui's eyes and realized she was pregnant, they'd done a little math and realized it was likely she'd either have had the baby by the time she reached the city, or would be days away, and no one in the lower rings would hire a new mother who was also a refugee.

Jin had known she would have to tell her parents, would have to convince them they had to take in Yanli, until she could get on her feet, because it was just so so important.

Her parents had freaked out of course, asked how long it had been, why she hadn't told them, asked who they all were, and then told Jin no, they couldn't get mixed up with Fire Nation refugees running from the Fire Lord himself just to get them all caught by the Dai Li.

Jin had promptly cried her eyes out, begging and begging. And begged. For months. It wasn't until one day, before Yanli had made it to Gaoling, that Jin was sitting at the dining table decidedly not eating breakfast, that her parents gave in. They asked what was wrong and Jin told them it had been too long, and that something must have happened to the ex-maid, because she should have reached Gaoling by then, but there hadn't been any news. This shook her parents a little, made it a bit more real, and they promised Jin, at least half to cheer her up, but half because dammit it's the right thing to do, that if the woman made it to Ba Sing Se, her and the baby could stay until they got on their feet.

So yeah. Thing seem to be working out, but neither of them had notice the old man watching them "re" unite on the platform. It wasn't the same man as had been following Yanli, but he seemed to have the same air about him.

Yanli has a daughter, born on the very first day of spring.

The whole cluster was there for the several hours Yanli was in labor, and Katara had even been allowed to step up and help the midwife near the end.

After the baby is deemed healthy and whole. The cluster kinda takes a step back and lets Zuko sit with Yanli and look at the baby. All of them had all kind of forgotten about the cluster thing until they saw Jin say "that's my little sister?" And remembered Zuko.

Yanli takes it in stride, all "do you wanna hold her" 

Zuko shakes his head "no, I'm scared I'd drop her… What are you gonna name her?"

"Chihiro, A Thousand Gains."


	5. Expansion Of Their Skill Set

When they're Twelve, Suki starts her official team training with her own group of Kyoshi Warriors. They're all daughters of other warriors from other teams across the island, all about Suki's age, and most of them have known each other, if not been friends, since they were little. Still, friendship meant nothing the three weeks their mother's grilled them on everything from basic survival, to hand to hand combat, to quick thinking and logic skills, to see who would be best fit for the role of leader among them.

Suki fought her damnedest for the title, knowing it was her destiny, her own separate destiny from whatever the spirits had in store for her and her cluster, and she tried not to be a sore winner when the votes came in.

Suki's favorite weapon was the katana, but with some help from Luyu, who becomes enamored with her fans and gets a pair of her own, they become incredibly proficient with those as well.

Around the same time, Master Yagoda deems Yue and Master Healer, and Pakku deems Katara, though of course he thinks it Yue, nearly a master, with only a few more years to go.

And that's also about the time Hakoda finds out. See, because, Katara could only keep her mysteriously increasing abilities a secret for so long, and when she's caught by Bato practicing in the ice fields, she doesn't even try to hide it. Hakoda stares at her through the explanation of it all, but accepts it, telling her he's not mad, and he understands why she didn't tell him. Gran Gran tells her to tell the princess to kick Pakku's pretentious ass the moment she can. That's where Kanna has to explain to the kids that she was from the North Pole. I imagine Hakoda already knew. Sokka is like, personally offended that Katara never told him the truth and really let him go around thinking his sister was haunted all these years. (Hakoda: you thought your sister was haunted and never said anything? Sokka: I'm not a snitch)

Also because Hakoda asks about her "friends out there" a lot, he gets a better picture of the world outside the South Pole, this is what prompts him to gather the men from the southern tribes and head north. Katara's like, a mix of proud and sad, but tell him to take the fleet straight to Kyoshi Island, they'll be expecting them and they'll help them get their bearings on where they can go to join the war efforts.

It's only once they're at Kyoshi Island, and a woman dressed in green armor and face paint, followed by eight other girls in identical dress, greet him at the docks and one of the young girls says "it's nice to finally met you in person Chief Hakoda," even though the Water Tribe hadn't sent word ahead of their arrival, that Hakoda finally realized that Katara was telling the truth. Not that he thought she was lying, it was just a very big idea to wrap his head around.

\---

One day while Teo and Luyu are flying together, both are flying in their respective places while mentally visiting each other, Teo shows Luyu a new trick. He'd figured out how to maneuver his glider so well and so precisely that he could write or draw in the sky. He showed her this by writing "Teo was here" in the sky and landing to look up so she could see. Luyu's first reaction was to worriedly tell Teo it was dangerous to be doing that and that he could be drawing a target on his back (hey remember a few part back when Luyu was a scaredy cat-owl. Yeah that's still a thing lol. Continuity who? I don't know her.) But then she gets all excited, because what's done is done, and asks Teo if he knew what this means!? 

He's all "Um, I can draw silly faces up in the sky?"

"No, it means you're a Master Airbender! Airbenders achieve mastery by either mastering all the main moves, or inventing their own new move, and sky writing's never been done in the history of airbending… I mean I don't think. I've never heard of it, but even if it's been done before, you've invented it again and that totally still counts!"

Everybody in the northern air temple congratulated Teo, his dad revamps his glider to celebrate, and some of the adults take a journey to the nearest village (it's like a week's journey there and back) to buy fresh tattoo ink, and Teo gets his own tattoos, a little near-invisible arrows head on the inside of his wrist just like he'd learned about from Luyu. In fact, many of the adults got their own mastery tattoos as well. It was all very touching, them being able to connect with their heritage in a way they never had before. (Continuity who? Teo probably let the secret slip to a bunch of the kids throughout the years and it got to the parents, but like, they were all cool with it. Honestly the only people who aren't gonna find out are the ones who aren't gonna be cool with it.)

\---

Jin gets approached shortly after the arrival of Yanli while she's on her way to work one morning, the old man looks cleaner than most lower ring residents, and with fake-fancy looking clothes that don't stand out too much in the lower ring, but Jin's best friend is a seamstress, some things just rub off, Jin would have noticed him even if he hadn't tapped her on the shoulder.

He's basically all "I know what you did for that nice Fire Nation girl." and Jin instantly panics. He tell her he thought it was rather kind and she should stop by his flower shop some time, before handing her a little slip of paper with a middle ring address on it.

So here's what's going on cause I ain't really playing the mystery game here. Someone in the White Lotus who was stationed at Gaoling spotted Chí, his mom, and Toph helping out Yanli, but like, he never over heard the IMPORTANT secret cluster stuff, just "here's some money. Here's a map, this is how to get to Ba Sing Se." So he sent a dispatch to headquarters or whatever, and Yanli was actually followed pretty much the whole time, she just didn't notice for a while. The reason they're doing this is because they think this might be bigger than one person getting smuggled out of /into somewhere. And they're the White Lotus, they wanna be in on EVERYTHING.

And the reason they approach Jin, even though the White Lotus base in Ba Sing Se is so small because even they're hiding from the Dai Li, is because they can't find the little girl from Gaoling, and the Spirit Wilds of the swamp don't seem to want to let them in to talk to the boy and his mom, and while there had originally planned to approach Yanli in the City, when they saw Jin, someone who was clearly in on the operation helping that the woman being smuggled, they were like "the girl knows more, and sometime if you're lucky, children talk too much if they trust you" so they're like "hey we'll let her in on our secrets just a little and see if she reciprocate."

On the cluster's end, they're like "who" and "what" and "we're FUCKED" but ultimately they decide, you know, we gotta know what's going on, and what all they actually know.

So a few days later, the cluster all gather again, they want everyone's skills at their disposal if Jin needs help. Like Jin has three knives on her. And her knuckles are wrapped (discreetly of course, under some slightly too long sleeves) in case of punching or chi blocking. Toph will straight up bury them.

Oh yeah, so neat trick, Jin is learning to use Toph's seismic sense on her own, it's like the only complicated earthbending she's trying to learn on her own, so Toph's not, like, feet blind when she's with Jin at least, they haven't quick worked out truth-telling, on Jins end, it's a really subtle are, especially with professional liars, but they can definitely tell where people are around Jin 

So yeah. They go on a day that's busy enough for witnesses, but empty enough to avoid eavesdroppers, this was Suki's idea.

When she gets there she goes up to where he's sitting at the front counter like, "so, what did you mean, what I did for that nice Fire Nation girl? She's my aunt from the colonies, it's not that special."

And dude straight up pulls out some documents from a drawer as is all "yes, accept your whole family has been in Ba Sing Se on both sides for three generations Miss, so I highly doubt she's your aunt."

And the cluster freaks out like "He's Dai Li!" "No, Dai Li don't work like this!" "But who else has that much information in this city!?" "Well then who IS he!?" "How long has he been watching us!?" "We should walk away!" "No, take the documents and burn them!" "She can't burn them, Lóngwěi!" "Take them and run!" "She'll look like a thief! The Dai Li will find us for sure!"

Jin cuts them off with a hiss before putting on a brave face and saying, "What do you want?"

"Just wanted to know why and how you did it, thought I might be able to help you,"

"Help how?" Jin asks, refusing to drop her story. "My Aunt's already safe in the city, my family has everything handled, what can you offer her? A job here? I'm not gonna let you near her or anyone until I know who you are."

Dudes like "I work for an organization that helps people all over the world. We know you helped your "Aunt" get here all the way from Gaoling at least, we'd be more than happy to help your people smuggle more refugees out of bad situations. Here," he hands her a sealed envelope. "Why don't you give this to your boss, and they can come by some time to talk."

So now the clusters like uuummmm, what do? Just ignore him? Go away and pretend it never happened? Jin can't really tell him "oh I don't have a boss, just voices in my head"!

Jin leaves with the letter and stern "We'll see what the boss says." Trying to sound confident, even though she's shaken.

They do a lot of talking that night. Like, this is probably the scariest situation they've ever been in, because no one's ever had more information about them than themselves, their secrets had never really been at risk before.

But at the same time, they claimed to help people, and they couldn't be Dai Li, they really couldn't, and if they could get a hold of birth records, what else could they know? Could they have access to the Dia Li's library? The university's? Did they maybe have their own secret Library?

Jin's "join the Dai Li for information" plan is suddenly resurfacing. And she tells them about it again.

"You can't be serious? Even I think that's too dangerous." Lóngwěi says.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Lóngwěi." Katara adds. And Luyu nods in agreement.

"Well I think she should go for it." Jeong-Hui counters. They're all like why? And he says because at this point they've reached nothing but dead ends on their quest for answers. And because none of them could say it hadn't felt AMAZING to work together from across the world to help someone.

And here was a group with possible information, and the intent to help more people.

"And as long as Jin doesn't spill the chickpea-beans about us, we're safe. It's one single secret, she can totally do it."

"And if she gets in physical danger, she can still call on us any time." Toph adds.

"We should get some more information on them first. Jin should read the letter." Chí says.

The envelope doesn't even have a letter in it, it just has White Lotus tile in it.

"So that's useless." Lóngwěi rolls his eyes.

"Or it's a secret code." Zuko suggests. 

So they all set out to gather information on everything from Pai Sho to flower codes.

Yue's the one that finds the one scroll on the White Lotus. It contains almost nothing, and is more speculation than fact. It simply says that the group of people dressed in clothes decorated with the White Lotus had often shown up in times of war and stood on the front lines with the oppressed. They appeared all over the world, and often their groups consisted of benders of all types as well as non-benders with a wide variety of skills. They never stayed long, and they never gave names.

"That sounds a little bit like us, if we could meet in person." Teo says after Yue reads them the scroll. "Maybe the White Lotus is an organization for people like us?"

"That's possible. They don't sound evil at any rate." Yue agrees.

"I still think it's worth the risk." Jeong-Hui agrees.

So they come up with a little plan. Basically Jin goes back to the old man's shop and pretends that her "boss" sent her. She says her boss says the deal is this "I'll work for you, you can ask questions, and we can ask questions, and neither side can get mad if the other refuses to share information. If you earn our trust, we might tell you more."

The man accepts, and that's how Jin ends up joining the White Lotus. At first she just goes to see the man at his shop a couple times a week and they talk. And he teaches her Pai Sho (both Yue and Luyu have a knack for the game, and they beat the man their fair share of times). After a while she tells him vaguely that getting her aunt into the city had been her first mission. The man says he often waits at the train station for refugees being smuggled into the city as well. They bond a little over the anxiety of the wait, when the person you're helping is between checkpoints, and one day, the old man shows her a letter he received from his higher ups about a family coming into the city the next day, and asks her to join him in greeting them.

The next day, they wait at the train station all morning, and when the family arrives, Jin tags along as the man takes the family to a separate location in the middle ring from his shop. It seems to be a small restaurant in front, but the man leads them through a hall in the back and into the large basement filled with desks and men and women of all ages. Several children Jin's age run in and out with messages to and from all over the city.

Jin watches a woman come and hand the family a bag of things, explaining there were IDs for them all that established them not as refugees, but as lifelong citizens, as well as a list of available apartments that wouldn't look too hard into their history, and a few available jobs that the parents would be qualifies for, and the address of an apprenticeship for their son who was a few years older than Jin.

The old man gives her a tour, and Jin's all "wow y'all are a lot more organized than us. We kept having to improvise our plan at every turn."

And the old man is like "oh you were involved in the planning?", cause they don't really let their apprentice do too much besides run letters and perhaps help with the archiving. Jin's like "yeah to be honest we're not really any kind of organization, we literally just wanted to get Yanli to safety, I don't even have a boss in the city."

The man's thinking "oh damn we got duped by a twelve year old?"

And Jin looks at his face and smiles and is all "so yeah, I'm clever and sneaky, and quick under pressure. I think I'd be valuable to your mission if you'd be willing to let me?"

Later she meets with a woman who runs the underground office and basically gets accepted into the White Lotus. Jin quits her current job, and gets a new job "at the old man's flower shop." And from there she just runs errands, and takes letters from refugees to the main office, and starts learning their secrets. They teach her how to shadow walk, how to posture herself to seem higher or lower class, they teach her strategy. She gets to meet with many more people running from the Fire Nation, and even a few running from the North Pole and some of the worse off areas of the Earth Kingdom that the war hadn't touched.

And then one day she gets instructions to deliver a message to a professor at Ba Sing Se University. She gets to take a bath and dress in fancy upper ring clothes, and some one does her hair super intricately. Jin delivers the message in between classes.

The professor practically jumps with joy as he reads the letter.

"Oh! Do you know what this is, Little Girl!?"

"Um, no sir, of course not, I would never go through your mail?"

"There's been another lead discovered to Wan Shi Tong's Library." And damn if "library" ain't a trigger word for the cluster at this point. A mysterious library too! 

So Jin's like "oh I love libraries! Tell me about this one," and the professor's all "it's the great Knowledge Spirits library, legend has it it's somewhere in the Si Wong Desert. I've made a few trips into the dessert myself, but I've never found it!" 

And Jins like !?!? SP!? IRIT!?!?! LI?!? BRARY!?!?!?!?! CODE FUCKIN RED Y'ALL

And the clusters like !!!!!! SPIRIT LIBRARY !!!!!!

And Professor Zei can see the excitement in Jin's eyes and he's like "You are definitely a kindred spirit if mine, young one, my next class is starting soon, but here's a pass for you to the University's library, come back after class and i'll have a reply for your boss."

Jin thanks him and walks VERY FAST, she does not run, to the library. She heads straight for the spirit's section of the library

She starts off by looking into spirit blessings, and finds a couple of books to start off with. A few of them talk about being born with visions of things to come, or things happening presently elsewhere, but nothing like what the Cluster experiences. Next she looks into Wan Shi Tong, who she learns is the spirit of knowledge, and his library is said to house all the knowledge in the world, but it hasn't been found by humans for the last thousand years. The last person said to have visited was an ally of the Avatar. Looking into the allies of the avatar led her right back to legends of the Yāorèn. She was reading about the supposed group of people that had existed many millennia ago who acted with the Avatar's authority when the Avatar couldn't be present.

The bell signaling the end of classes rang when she was reading one supposed story of a Yāorén's adventures.

She hadn't been allowed to check the book out, but the story stuck with her. She thought about it all the way back to Professor Zei's class.

The Professor comments on how lost in thought she seems when he hands her his letter and she's like "I just read something that got me thinking" and Zei like "I love when that happens. Well. I'm off to make my traveling plans, let me walk you back to the train station."

While they're walking, Jin's like "traveling? Are you going to go looking for the spirit library again?" And Zei says yes, and Jin's like "If you find it, do you think you could look into something for me?" And then Zei agrees, and she tells him she'll come back the next day with a little list of subjects.

Unfortunately months later, Professor Zei returns without having gotten any closer. He still happily writes her passes to the library, and checks out books for her that she can read in his classroom whenever she has the chance.

When she finally gets access to the White Lotus's small library in Ba sing Se, it's just as unhelpful.

The cluster at that point just reluctantly agrees that whatever the spirits have done with them, it's the first of its kind, and that they're just going to have to figure it out on their own.

They agree it must be about helping people, because through her work with the White Lotus, they've helped smuggle three more people into Ba Sing Se, and it had just felt so good and so right, but with the stories of the Yāorèn in their heads, and the knowledge that the Avatar wasn't present to act with any authority anywhere, and a devastating war nearing the one century mark, they were starting to grow afraid of just how much they were meant to help the world. None of them were exactly prepared to fight in a war.

\---

After going to see her first Earth Rumble event, Toph like, starts sneaking out all the time and becomes the Blind Bandit. Xin Fu approaches her after her first match, it was a practice one designed to see who actually qualified, and is all "how did you learn to fight like that without eyes kid?"

"None of your business."

"You're lucky people will pay to see grown men get their asses kicked by a little girl."

"You're lucky I showed up."

"Hah. You're alright kid."

This starts a good relationship between Toph and Xin Fu, because like, I get the dude was sleezy in the show, but f that, Toph needs a valid father figure, and Underground Wrestling Man is perfect.

So we all know Toph is a self taught genius. But she has her own unique style, and we know her "actual" Earthbending teacher won't teach her anything past the basics of the traditional style. So one day Toph tell Xin Fu she wants him to teach her the traditional style cause at this point she wants to get past the fucking basics just to see what they are. Xin Fu agrees, but she has to teach him hers too. He's best dad fight me.

Eventually Toph comes across some runaways, cause like Gaoling's a big city, not Ba Sing Se big, but there's a lot for Toph to explore, and she makes friends with some runaways who were getting away from abusive households, and orphans whose situations just sucked. She makes Xin Fu give the honest ones jobs in the arena and makes him use her winnings to pay for their housing, plus some money she takes from her parents because fuck the rich even if she is one. She's seen the lower rings of Ba Sing Se, and if Jin can help her people, Toph can help her own too.

Zuko's uncle returns from his mysterious journey to wherever that year and Ozai doesn't like it. Azula doesn't like it. Zuko LOVES it. He spends time with his uncle, they play a lot of Pai Sho, Zuko doesn't really like the game. But Jin, Luyu, and Yue do, and they surprise Uncle by winning a few games.

Then One day he visits with his uncle while Lóngwěi us visiting him and Lóngwěi like

"WHAT THE HELL!? I KNOW THAT MAN!!! HE'S YOUR UNCLE!?"


	6. Lóngwěi Gets In Toruble.

So Lóngwěi is the only one that managed to keep all his secrets up to that point. The others in the cluster have seen some of where he lives, and while Zuko recognizes as the Sun Warrior's ruines, but they all think Lóngwěi's people are just escaped Air Nomads, so he just figured that's where they settled. No one ever pried, they'd all already agreed to respect each other secrets, and if they had ever popped in on Lóngwěi accidentally they promptly pulled the visit to their side, but when Lóngwěi says he's met the former crown prince of the Fire Nation, well, he has to explain that. Some secrets you get to keep, and some you just don't.

So Lóngwěi freaking out, because like, yeah, he trusts them all, but it was just so ingrained in him to not expose the Sun Warriors, and he's been so proud of himself as Katara, and Teo, and Luyu and Ty Lee had all eventually spilled the chickpea-beans on their own secrets, and now he's gone and ruined it. So like, on one had his pride is ruined, and on the other,,,, if he's gotta tell the cluster about the Sun Warriors, he has to tell his people about the cluster, because, again, he trust them not to tell, but he doesn't exactly trust that someone won't one day get their hands on one of his Cluster and even just accidently get the information out of them. His people have to be prepared, and he's a little bit ashamed of himself for not coming clean on all sides sooner.

So yeah. He tells the cluster, and they're just as in awe to learn the Sun Warriors were still around as the airbenders. He reveals he's a Firebender too, and does some showing off (stalling before he has to go see the high priest) of his style of bending. Zuko and he compare styles and Zuko tells Lóngwěi his style seems even more complicated than the Fire Nation's traditional style, kinda laughing it off.

And then it gets into how exactly Lóngwěi has met Uncle. He tells them it happened when they were ten, just after they'd learned about the Siege of Ba Sing Se. He explains that the Sun Warriors have actually had a handful of visitors to their island in the last century, that they actually supposedly used to have a trade agreement with the Mother Superior of the Western Air Temple before the genocide. He tells them that Iroh had come one day, on a small boat, all alone. The people of the island had hidden as they always did when an outsider came, but Iroh was different. He didn't go around breaking down doors in an attempt to loot the ruins for some supposed long lost treasure. He'd admired the architecture, and studied the paintings on the walls.

The priests and warriors had followed him in the shadows as he'd wound his way through their city, until he'd begun heading for the Master's Caves.

"The Master's Caves? What's that?" the other had asked. 

"It's where the true masters of firebending live. They're above even the High Priest. Second only to Agni. Anyway,"

He tells how the High Priest had had to stop Iroh before he'd begun to make his way up the stairway that led to the Master Cave's. That was when Iroh revealed he'd been on a spirit journey, he'd had a vision that had led him to them. He'd had a gift for their people.

"What was it?" Ty Lee asked.

Lóngwěi shakes his head, he almost said he didn't know, but he wanted to be truthful with them for a change. "I can't tell you. Maybe after I speak with the High Priest, but I'll be in enough trouble already, I want to at least be able to tell him I've given away very little."

They agree that's fair and Lóngwěi finishes his story. He tells how Uncle went to meet with the Master's, and they gave him their highest blessing.

"They gave me the same blessing when I was a baby, and they never gave it frivolously. So I wanted to meet him, since he was the first person I'd ever seen receive the blessing too."

That night the tribe had a feast, with music and storytelling and several whole roasted boar-cupines. Lóngwěi sneaked away from his parents when Iroh wandered out of the great hall for some air.

Iroh can feel Lóngwěi's eyes on the back of his head, before Lóngwěi even steps out of the shadows, and invites the boy to join him for a sit on the steps.

"Why'd the Master's bless you? Why are you so special?" Lóngwěi blurts out as he sits, ever the master of subtlety.

"Special? Well, that's not a word I would use to describe myself, but I do ask myself often what the spirits have in store for me that has had them sending me on such a journey these last few months."

"Then why'd you come see the Masters if you're not special. No one ever goes to see the Masters if they're not worthy. Or in trouble"

"Do you think worthy and special are the same things?"

"Of course. Everyone who's been shown to be worthy has always been special, especially me. I've been worthy my whole life, and look at me now! I've got- some mysterious visions!" He had to stop himself from saying 'a bunch of people in my head.'

"You sound displeased to be so worthy and special?" 

"You would be too if the spirits didn't explain any of it to you!"

Uncle chuckles. "But the spirits didn't explain it to me. I simply had a vision as well, and followed their lead. In my experience, it's best to simply go with the flow when it comes to the will of the spirits, you often find yourself where you're most needed when you let fate choose your course. I mean, look at me. If I'd done what was expected of me, I'd be back home, ignorant of the great knowledge that the Sun Warriors, and all your knowledge, wasn't truly lost to the world."

"And the Masters wouldn't have their gift." Lóngwěi added.

"That too! And what a wonderful gift it was, if I may say. But anyhow, you seem to be a strong willed young man with a good sense of himself. I'm sure whatever the spirits have in store for you is nothing you can't handle."

"Yeah well a heads up and a note wouldn't have hurt."

"I do believe you were the one who said he was blessed by the Masters at birth, no? That's a rather good warning, don't you think?" Iroh raised an eyebrow.

"I- what- no! That's not the point!" Lóngwěi crossed his arms, pouting.

"No, it's not. I sometimes think the spirits aren't quite sure _how_ to speak with us, and they simply do the best they can. I'm sure if you truly need help from them on your journey, they'll find a way to aid you, and until then it's best not to worry about things taking an unexpected turn."

He and Uncle talked for a few more minutes, before Lóngwěi's oldest brother finds him and tells him they're going home for the night.

"I like your uncle. He's weird, but he actually listened to me. He's the only one that's ever called me 'strong willed' like it was a good thing." Lóngwěi finishes.

They all marvel that a member of the Fire Nation royal family had known this whole time about the Sun Warriors civilization and hadn't said anything, and they all agree he's a very good and trustworthy man. Not like, trustworthy enough to tell about their connection if they didn't need to, but still, he was higher on the list than anyone else in Zuko or Ty Lee's life.

After he tells the cluster about the Sun Warriors, he says goodbye to them and, with his hands shaking, but his head held high, he marches straight to the High Priests and confesses everything. They let him finish, they hear everything, including his assurances that they knew nothing of their location. Lóngwěi gets in trouble. Like his parents are called in and the whole community knows somethings up- but they just think like, he pulled a really mean prank and some kid got hurt.

After his parents hear everything, there's more talking, decision on consequences, plans for moving forward from there.

The decision is made obviously that they're going to up their defenses because even though Lóngwěi hasn't given away they're location, they're worried because one of the cluster is Zuko, never mind that he was Iroh's nephew and they liked Iroh, because he was Ozai's son and therefore a threat. And also, they don't really trust Lóngwěi's judgment, seeing as he's a child and an impulsive one at that. They don't know how much thought he'd put into trusting them. Like, it sucks, but Lóngwěi kinda dug his own grave there having a life long additude problem.

As far as punishment goes, they decide that the Masters must be involved, and so, the whole community watches as Lóngwěi makes the long trek up the mountain to meet with Rahn and Shaw.

Lóngwěi really expects the worst, and can't decide if them refusing their blessing and leaving him to the mercy of the community, or them straight up incinerating him on the spot is the worse option.

He's standing at the base of the stairway, a piece of the First Flame in his hands, and he feels so so alone, with hundreds of eyes staring at him expectantly.

And then he isn't alone. No longer is there one, but twelve of them standing there, all of them breathed deep calming breaths right alongside him.

Lóngwěi takes his first step up the stairs.

"I don't think they want you here for this." Lóngwěi murmurs to them as soon as he's sure he's out of earshot.

"Fuck them." Toph says.

"Yeah really!" Jeong-Hui agrees. "We won't let you face punishment alone, especially when you're getting in trouble for something we're all doing!"

"And none of us got in this much trouble either!" Katara adds, thinking how when her whole tribe found out they'd rather embraced it, asking for news of the war and their sister tribe, and generally being grateful someone had been able to teach Katara waterbending when no one in the south pole could.

Lóngwěi is so grateful and leads them up the stairs.

Everyone asks Lóngwěi about the Masters and what they're like, and Lóngwěi, even though he's about to possibly be in a lot of trouble, is still a dramatic bitch at heart and is all "y'all will see."

And ooooooh boy! When the dragons fly out!?!? They're all amazed in shock and awe!

Zuko's like "but I thought my uncle killed the last one!?"

And Lóngwěi's like "nope, he just found them dying, and claimed he'd killed them, and he brought the Masters the other dragons' eggs."

"The 'gift'?"

"Yeah"

Usually when one presents themselves to the masters they're meant to do something that shows respect, the Dancing Dragons' dance is the most often used, but Lóngwěi doesn't do the dance. Instead, he holds out his hands, spreading them out, and lets his single piece of First flame split into twelve- one for each of them- and lowers himself to ground, bowing deep before the Masters.

He's like, super shaking, he really thinks he's about to get in trouble. But when the Masters stop their dance, they don't land before Lóngwěi, but fly down to the others at the base of the mountain. The sound of them moving away makes Lóngwěi look up, and the cluster watch the dragons descend on the people below.

There's no carnage like many in the cluster expect, knowing nothing of dragons, but the people below are envelope flames of red of all shades.

Anger. Displeaser. Judgment.

Lóngwěi is not in trouble, but the other's are.

Rahn and Shaw return up the mountain after only a moment, taking all the flames with them, and returning to their caves. They don't even spare Lóngwěi a glance.

Lóngwěi is not punished exactly, and none of the priests do anything, or say anything. From them, it's accepted that Lóngwěi is connected to the others.

But the people know Lóngwěi's done something, and for a while he's a bit of a pariah. Lóngwěi's parents encourage him to keep his head down, and he does as best he can, trying not to pick on the little kids, not to get into fights. It's all rather annoying.

The High Priest basically makes him start studying under him, making him be at the temple all the time so he can keep an eye on Lóngwěi for trouble, and Lóngwěi freaking HATES it. It's too many rules and too much being quiet. He tries to get in fights there with the others but everyone there knows what's up and they don't take the bait. He's not getting out of it.

So yeah.

Then one day Lóngwěi and Chí end up involuntarily visiting each other. Lóngwěi finds Chí he has absolutely no idea where, surrounded by trees, and pouting. He joins him in a sit.

"What's got you all mopey?" Lóngwěi teases.

"I was just thinking." Chí sighs

 _"About?"_ Lóngwěi prompts. "Gotta give me more than that. This sense-sharing thing still doesn't include mind reading."

"About… everything." Chí sighs. "About how when Yanli needed help, it wasn't me who came up with the idea, or when Jin was cornered by that White Lotus guy, I didn't have anything to add. And even recently, when you had to go see the masters, when you were in trouble with your people couldn't help you. I just, I always thought, because the Banyan tree chose me, told me everything before the connection even came, that I was supposed to be our, I don't know, our leader, and I suck at it."

"Yeah, I don't really picture you as our leader." Lóngwěi agrees, even though he knows it's not what he wants to hear. What? It's not like Lóngwěi ever claimed to be good with people's feelings. "But hey, you're good at breaking up a fight, and besides that one time with Ty Lee you never start them."

"Yeah but, I don't know, all the kids here in the swamp look up to me. I'm basically next in line for the chiefdom-hood of the tribe after my Uncle Huu, I just. Figured it would be the same with you guys. I just thought leadership was my destiny."

"Yeah I get that destiny thing." Lóngwěi nods. "Here I've been all my life thinking I was special for being blessed with rainbow fire from birth, and yet when I bowed before the masters as my own person, they didn't even look at me twice! It was like I wasn't even worth their time!"

"I mean, it's fair they were more concerned with admonishing the people who were unfairly judging you." Chí offers.

"Yeah, well, now I feel like, I don't know, like because they didn't bless me again, they were saying I'm not worthy of it anymore. It's like, if they had looked at me now, would they have seen the same person they saw as a baby? Or am I maybe a disappointment?"

"Why would you be a disappointment?"

"Because I'm not a good warrior, or particularly spiritual, I still don't know why the spirits choose me to be in the cluster, it just causes problems on my end, and it's not like any of you like me very much."

"That's not true!" Chí says. And Lóngwěi can feel Chí's face scrunch up in astonishment. "You're one of my best friends!"

"Really? Me?" Lóngwěi scoffs.

"Yeah! You're too hard on yourself, but, honestly, you're smart and whenever we talk, like now, I always feel like you get me."

"Dude I don't get you at all!" Lóngwěi chuckles. "But yeah, you always make me feel less irritated. I'm glad you think I'm your friend. About your leadership problem, I don't think we're supposed to have a leader. I mean. We all talk things out when there's an emergency. Everyone gets a say. Everyone listens to everyone. No one's the boss. And I can't picture myself ever following one of you more than the others. I mean. Could you?"

"No I guess not… then what's the point of my being in the cluster?"

"Dude I still don't know why I'm here!" Lóngwěi repeats. "How do you even know the spirits chose us for any specific reasons? How do you know it wasn't just random, and you HAPPENED to be born near the spirit that did it?"

"I hadn't thought of that."

"I've thought way too much about it." Lóngwěi rolls his eyes at the memories of lying awake until sunrise agonizing over it.

They talk for a while longer, until the sun starts to set on Chí and he has to return to the village. They both feel better about their respective issues, even if said issues aren't totally resolved.

\----

So Yue gets engaged.

It's nothing really official, Hahn hasn't presented her with a betrothal necklace, and no contracts have been signed between their families, but it's an open secret no one's talking about. Yue had at least had a small group of boys to choose from, and while some had been kind, they weren't fighters- she would never be allowed on the battlefield even with her skills, and she needed a husband who would be a proper leader in time of war (and she knew war was coming). Some had been push overs and Jeong-Hui, Lóngwěi, and Jin (and the rest of them to a lesser degree) had though she ought to pick from them because then she'd have had the best chance to rule her own people through them, but she had wanted someone to rule at her side, for real, once she realised she couldn't marry for love, and and none of them were that. The rest were all strong warriors, some waterbenders, some not, and all of them were obnoxious. The only reason she'd picked Hahn over the others was that he seemed to be the natural leader of the gang of boys he hung out with, and because he'd at least acknowledge her skills as a fighter with waterbending, (acknowledge not being complemented, he'd says "she fought pretty good for a girl," but not some variation of "girls shouldn't fight like that" like the rest.) He was a pig, but she thought there was room to work out the kinks.

At the least by the time they were seventeen and set to marry, he would understand if he thought no other woman was a man's equal, she was his, and she would meet him with opposition at every turn if he chose to make it difficult.

"I'll straighten him out if he acts like an idiot." Katara had promised one night while Yue and Hahn were sharing a dance. Yue had only smiled. Hahn had said she was pretty.

\---

One day the Circus comes to Caldera. Azula, Mai, and Zuko go with Ty Lee's family the opening night, and Ty Lee is mesmerized watching the acrobatics on the tight rope and the trapiz, she could just imagine herself up there, spinning and flipping at such great heights. She'd squeezed Zuko's hand so hard in between them that she'd ended up feeling it through their connection and making herself jump.

She'd apologized and explained what made her so excited, but Zuko had just smiled and said she would make a great acrobat.

Azula had frowned from next to her brother as they talked, not liking their friendship.

\---

That year during a festival Jeong-Hui got the chance to show off his archery skills in front of a crowd, at an archery competition being held by some of the Yuyan archers on leave from the Pohuai Stronghold. They'd complimented him (through an interpreter or course, as all Yuyan archers take a vow of silence) when he came in first place against several adults, and they told him when he said he wanted to be one of them, that if he kept it up, they might be able to sweet talk their boss into letting him join as early at fourteen- the training of course, he wouldn't be seeing field action till sixteen just like everyone else, but it was a start and Jeong-Hui jumped at the chance.

\----

With Lóngwěi's help with Firebending, Zuko's skills improved a little, he couldn't mimic the Sun Warrior's dance-like style of bending (I'm thinking of it being based on Capoeira) in front of his tutors of course, but just knowing some of the fundamentals of the Sun Warrior's technique really helped him keep his cool when he failed, being better able to see where and why.

\----

Suki and her girls have their first solo mission. They have to travel a day's journey to another village on their own, making camp that night, and gathering and cooking their own food, before helping that village do repairs from a storm that had hit the island pretty hard just days before. Everything goes off without a hitch (they even manage to catch, kill, and properly dress a small wolfbat all on their own) up until they make camp for the night on the return trip, and one of her girls trips while gathering berries, and twists her ankle. Suki sends four of the girls along the road as night falls, to return to their village and bring someone back who can carry the injured girl.

Said girl profusely apologizes for ruining their first mission, and insists she can make it through the night, but Suki tells her she'd rather this be judged a failure of a mission, than let the girl's leg get worse and become a permanent problem. 

"Besides, this wasn't a test or anything, they just wanna see what we can do, they're not gonna disband us. And anyway, I bet our moms will be more glad we knew when to ask for help."

The healer and his son come find them late that night, and after a check over by the healer who determines it's only a small sprang and not a fracture, wraps her ankle in a cool wet cloth and has his son carry the girl back.

Their mothers dub their mission a success.

\----

Jin finds the word for them in the White Lotus's library, in the medical section.

Synesthesia is a phenomenon where one's senses are connected, so they have the ability to do things like see sounds as colors, or seeing times and dates as places or at closer or farther distance.

"So basically. When one sense is activated, another one is, and that's kind of what happens with us." Jin explains to the gathered cluster as she read the passage again. "When one of us hears or sees something, the others can too because they're connected to each other. It's not exact, but it's similar. People with this condition are rare, and they're called Lián Jué Zhě. Isn't that neat?"

"Yeah! That's pretty cool." Teo says.

"So we're totally calling ourselves that from now on right?" Jeong-Hui asks. "We're the Liàn Jué Zhě!"

Everyone kinda jokes about Jeong-Hui being a nerd and giving their group a name like they were the Yuyan Archers or something, but they're all kids and they'd be totally lying if they said they didn't think it was cool to give themselves a name too.


	7. Theater Masks For The Win

So things are pretty calm for a while. They turn thirteen, and they all join each other's celebrations. It's a long exciting day filled with fun and dancing, and congratulations, and presents. They go to bed exhausted but very happy, and very excited to be another year older.

It doesn't last.

The day Zuko attended the war meeting was a relatively quiet day for everyone, there were no involuntary visits, and he was sure if anyone popped in, they would pop back out without him needing to say anything. So he sits quietly and listens for most of it. The generals all kiss his father's ass at every opportunity, and Zuko has to suppress the desire to roll his eyes.

Then when it comes to the discussion of the 41st decision, Zuko can't help but speak up. He's kicked out of the meeting and a notice that an Agni Kai was issued is delivered to his rooms an hour later. This makes a pit from in his stomach instantly, and the cluster's there just as quickly.

It's not that he's scared to fight the general, it's just he's not totally confident he can win, and that would bring a lot more shame than if he simply refused the challenge. On top of that it would be his first Agni Kai, it's a big event, there will be a lot of high ranking witnesses, his future subject, they'll never respect him if he loses.

The other's all hang out with him that night, encouraging him, and promising they'll all be there, and even promising they'll help him in the fight. Zuko has to turn down that last one, saying it'll be dishonorable of him to have outside assistance, but he thanks them all for everything.

When Zuko turns around and finds he's fighting his father and not the general, well he's not relieved, but he's a little more excited for the fight. The Agni Kai is short, Zuko fights the best he can, but he ultimately loses. They're all there and they all feel it when Ozai burns Zuko's face. They all scream. There's no telling which of them it was that kicked Ozai's torso, there's no telling who sent the flames after the man. It was all of them. All of them at once in pain and fear and trying to get away, get away, get away!

Ozai ends up with burn scars against his chest, and while Zuko's still recovering from his own burns into the infirmary, Ozai declares that Zuko is honorless for retaliating against his opponent even after he'd lost, and declares he has to be banished until he finds the Avatar to regain his honor.

All the kids ended up hurting their own faces a little, scratching at their own left eyes to get away from the pain. For those whose parents knew about the connection, it's easy enough to explain what happened, and everyone gets a hug from those A+ parents.

For Toph, it was late evening and she'd been in the garden, when the guards collected her and her parents found out she got hurt, more restrictions about her wandering through the grounds alone. When Xin Fu and the Bolder (cause i was dumb and forgot about the Bolder. So now he and Xin Fu are together. They started Earth Rumble because they love fighting and putting on a show. They're the best grumpyXhimbo combo you could ask for) see Toph next, they're like "we'll beat the shit out of whoever hurt you" and Toph like "nah I tripped" but they're not dumb and so Tophs like "fiiiiine" and comes clean cause they won't leave it alone (listen of someone can hurt Toph, they need to go down they're too powerful). The Bolder's straight up ready to storm the Fire Nation and beat the shit out of Ozai.

Jeong-Hui's sister, Chiyo, gives him the biggest hug. She'd been deciding if she wanted to join the military herself, being only a year off from recruiting age, because the Fire Nation was always looking for earthbenders for their side to combat the Earth Kingdom's, but after hearing what the Fire Lord did to his own son, and what's going to happen to the 41st, she and her brother have a long talk about their loyalties. They agree not to tell their parents still. After some talking, like, a few days of it, Jeong-Hui says he still plans to join, because Zuko might be able to use any information Jeong-Hui gets from being in the military. Chiyo thinks that's a not-horrible plan. She wouldn't want to serve Ozai, but all the other options for Fire Lord suck, so Zuko needs to be in on the loop of his nation's goings-on if he wants to regain his throne somehow, one day. She agrees to join still too, because she's not about to leave her little brother to go do dangerous treasonous things alone.

Ty Lee's dad was at the Agni Kai. He saw the prince passed out on the raised stage, he saw the healers come a bandage the bleeding, burning, wound before they'd even dared move him. So when he comes home, and his second oldest has several bandaids covering up scratches around her left eye, he knows something's up. His wife claims she had some kind of fit around noon. The whole family's worried. Ty Lee's just crying in her room. Her dad knows it's connected to the prince. He asks her, and Ty Lee doesn't explain the whole thing about the cluster, but she does say she felt the prince's pain. Her dad's not sure what to do, but if things that affect the prince affect his daughter, he's about to keep a hella close eye on Ozai.

Ty Lee's scratch marks were the only one deep enough that they left small little scares. When Azula sees the marks she laughs and says she looks like Zuko, she doesn't even ask what happened. When Mai asks, Ty Lee just says she lost her balance in a tree and scratched her face on the bark. It takes her a while to realise no one ever mixes her up with her sisters after that.

Lóngwěi gets the most surprising reaction. At least to Lóngwěi. It was high noon, and everyone in the temple was having their lunch, so it was rather public when Lóngwěi started screaming for it to stop and scratching at his face. Being carried halfway across the city still screaming and crying had rather assured everyone else saw as well. It's not for a good hour before he gets the chance to explain that the prince had been hurt, and so they were all hurt. Everyone lightens up on Lóngwěi after that. He still has his duties at the temple, but he isn't so closely watched, and the tribe treat him less like a pariah.

Zuko's on a ship, and leaving the Fire Nation with his uncle within a week. 

As soon as Caldera is beyond the horizon, Yue is there with Zuko.

"You need that healed."

"What's the point?" Zuko asks, dejected.

"I can feel it- we all can- and you're going to lose your eye if you don't."

"All the healers are in the North. Who would let us close enough to explain, let alone actually aid us- me- the son of that bastard!?"

"Me. I would."

"No offense Yue, but you're father doesn't give a shit about what you say either."

"Then I'll come to you. Where can we meet you?"

"Your going to sneak out of Agna Qel'a, the second most fortified city in the world?" Zuko asks in disbelief.

"Yes." She says with utmost conviction.

They agree to meet at the Western Air temple, so Zuko can claim to his crew that he's starting his search for the avatar at all the temples.

Yue has two friends, both are girls she met at Yugoda's healing lessons. They're brave as hell, and ride or die for Yue. When she tells them she has a task set before her by the spirits, all she was asking was help preparing, and stealing a boat, but those girls were like "um, no, were coming with you." Yue can see they mean it, so she's like "I plan to meet with people from the Fire Nation." And when they don't back down, she doesn't argue with them coming.

Everything goes smoothly up to the moment they're ready to go. They've got a months worth of jerky and other preserved food, and books on waterbending fishing, (something katara is self taught at, and not half bad, and offers her help with of course.) They have a small boat picked out and loaded with everything that night, including a small barrel of water from the spirit oasis, and they're ready to pull out when Hanh and two of his friends show up.

They're condescending of course, all "y'all can't handle yourselves out there " and "we ought to alert the guard, it's for your own good."

Yue doesn't let them go on for long, she water-whipes Hahn, and Katara takes over when Hanh's one waterbending friend steps up. Katara wipes the floor with all four of them.

"Can't handle myself out there? Aren't you all 'trained warriors'?"

Yue takes back over and helps Hahn up.

"Listen. I have a mission to complete. I'm going and nothing is stopping me. Now get off my boat."

"No way. What kind of man would I be if I let a bunch of girls go off on some stupid quest all by themselves?"

"We don't need your protection. I can protect us myself!" Yue says.

"Yeah I can see that, but it's still my job to protect you, and besides, even the strongest warrior needs people to watch his back, that's like lesson number one princess, and don't think either of your girls are gonna be much help in a fight."

"He's right Yue… we might need their muscles…" one of her friends says.

Reluctantly Yue agrees. "Fine. But let me make this clear. This is my boat, and my mission. I am captain and queen here. I am in charge and if you can't handle that, leave now and we'll take our chances."

Hahn's friends defer to him, and he agrees. Just then, a third one of his friends shows up with four packs, one for each of the boys.

Yue and Katara were planning to have Katara in charge of their sailing until the girls caught on, even though Katara only had slightly more experience than them, but with the boys on board, they had no trouble getting everything ready and getting the boat sailing.

Once Agna Qel'a is nothing but a smudge on the horizon, Hahn approaches Yue at the helm. He asks about the scratches.

"Do they have something to do with your screaming?"

"You heard that?"

"Everybody heard that Princess."

"Yes. I had a vision."

"Of what?"

"You'll see."

Yue let's Hahn take over after a few hours, and she retires for the night. The next day there's a bit of a power grapple, as the boys seem to like having Hahn acting as captain, and the girls are more than happy to step back and let the boys do all the rope pulling and sail adjusting while they work on breakfast. But Yue isn't having it.

Hahn is condescending as he gives her back the wheel, but he at least does it without argument.

Hahn's waterbending friend is at least not so argumentative. He was a student of Master Pakku too, and knew Yue was a capable fighter. If he had a problem with her being a girl, Yue didn't know, because she couldn't remember ever hearing him speak before, let alone about her.

He's the one that shows the girls waterbending fishing, and they're pleased to see they won't starve.

They make it to the Western Air Temple before Zuko and Uncle, and that's when Yue debriefs the boys. To a point. She doesn't tell them the people coming are Fire Nation, just that she has someone she has to heal. The boys are still confused when Yue dawns a mask, designed to look like a white Koi fish with a black dot on her forehead, and the girls dawn identical masks, but black with a white spots.

"They're theater masks. Sorry we don't have any for you guys." One of the girls explains. "We didn't know you were coming."

"We don't know if one of the men we're meeting is entirely trustworthy, we don't want him to know who we are." Yue explains.

"That's okay. Me and the men, we'll stay in The shadow, sneak attack if they try something." Hahn says.

Yues nods, and they all get into position.

Zuko and Iroh had stopped by a Colonial Port City and bought some Earth Kingdom clothes on Zuko's order. Iroh suspects there's more to Zuko's wanting to go to the Air Temple, but Zuko isn't forthcoming with the information, and Iroh doesn't think his nephew's ready to be pushed yet. There's clearly something he needs to do, so Iroh's just going along to keep him safe.

Iroh has no idea what to think when he comes face to face with three girls in Koi Fish mask.

Iroh speaks first, when the girls emerge from the shadows, asking who they might be.

"I am of the Lián Jué Zhě. I am the one the Moon Blessed." Yue says, she feels a little silly, but they'd know Iroh would need some kind of explanation for who they were, and Jeong-Hui was coming up with names for all of them. He was enjoying himself way too much. She points to Zuko, "I heard the call and have come to heal him."

"And I thank you." Zuko says, approaching and sitting down with Yue in front of their fire.

Iroh is so suspicious of how his nephew knew to come here. He also knows they're being watched from the shadows. But if they don't attack, he won't.

Yue's friends bring out the small barrel of oasis water, and once Zuko takes off the bandage, she gets to work.

It takes several sessions, and just as many hours, before Yue is satisfied she'd done all she could. It was difficult because she'd never healed such a dramatic wound, and because everytime she did something that hurt Zuko it hurt her as well. But in the end she manages to save his hearing and his eyesight. The scar remains, and she doubts his eyebrow will be coming back- she hadn't been able to reform his ear either-, but there won't be any infection. There was no risk of death, now Zuko just had to… get used to the look of it.

Zuko thanks Yue and gives her a big hug, saying (quietly) it was so great to see her in person, before they leave. They both wished they could stay longer, but with their many guests, it was too risky.

Once Zuko and Iroh leave, Hahn and his guys come back out. And as they're headed back to their boat, Hahn pulls Yue to the back of the group and like whisper-shouts "Did you know they were Fire Nation!? Did you know that was Prince Zuko!?" 

She's like "How did _you_ know that!?"

"Everybody knows that's Prince Zuko! We talked about it in a meeting last week! His own father did that to his face!"

Yue's like "Wait back up. You were in a meeting?"

"Well yeah, I'm going to be chief one day, so I've started attending council meetings with my father."

"Oh that is such yakshit!"

"What?" Hahn is shocked to hear her yelling profanity.

" _You're_ going to be chief!" Yue yells. The rest of the group pause and look back but then decide not to get involved and walk farther ahead. Sorry Hahn you're on your own. "Its _my_ father who's chief, _I'm_ his child, _I'm_ blessed by the spirits, but _you_! _You're_ going to be chief, and _you're_ younger than _me_ but _you're_ allowed in council meetings, and _you're_ going to be chief, and _you_ can fight in the war, and _you_ can do whatever you want and _you_ get told everything because _you_ have a dick! I'm so sick of this!"

"Oh. I never... Thought of it like that."

"Of course you didn't! Tui and La I wish we lived in the south! Men are still stupid there but at least women can be cheif and they get to be a part of the politics and arranged marriages are _illegal_!"

"Yeah, but that's probably why they got so obliterated by the Fire Nation over the last century." Hahn says. He's not even trying to be condescending, he really thinks that.

" _No_." Yue snaps. "Our sister tribe was under direct, _ceaseless_ , attack by the Fire Nation for nearly thirty years, because the last Water Tribe avatar was born in the north, so the next would be born in the south, and the Fire Nation was covering their bases incase they missed the Air Nomad Avatar in the genocide.

"They were unable to run farther inland for fear of leaving the ocean and their main source of food. Unlike the Fire Nation which came in shift to attack their borders, there was no Souther Warrior that could take even a day's break for some _months_ of the fighting. They did the best they could, but they didn't stand a chance, and it wasn't because they had _women_ in charge. In fact they had an army _twice_ the size of the north because they let their women fight! If the Fire Nation had attacked us, we'd have fallen in _half_ the time they did, and we'd be the ones with no waterbenders left and a culter half forgotten!"

There's a pause.

"How do you know all that?"

"You heard me. I am of the Lián Jué Zhě." Yue said, before picking up the pace and leaving Hahn behind. 

Hahn does a lot of thinking on the journey back to Agna Qel'a. He comes through the trip a less sexist ass.

Everyone gets in a lot of trouble, like, so much trouble. Yue's dad almost canceled her engagement to Hahn, but Hahn is like, "Well what else was I supposed to do? Stop her and anger the spirits? Let her go alone and possibly get killed? Isn't it a good husband's job to aid and protect his wife in all endeavors? Are you gonna tell me I'm wrong?"

And like, that was ballsy, and Arnook looks at Yue, who's still in a looooot of trouble, but she actually looks at Hahn like she's endeared by this, and he doesn't call off the engagement.

They never get it out of any of the kids where they went or what they did.

A few weeks later, Hahn presents Yue with a betrothal necklace, and a promise.

The necklace is made of light blue ribbon, with dark blue waves embroidered on it, and the pendant was a ring of carved wood, carved to look like two Koi Fish chasing each other's tails. One is white and one is black, each with an inverted dot on their forehead, just like the koi in the Oasis Spring. It's absolutely lovely.

The promise is that until he is chief, he will let her know everything that is said in the council meetings, and as soon as he is chief, he will have her attend all the council meetings with him. And she'll get a say in everything.

She accepts.

\---

Iroh sends a lot of letters. He sends a letter to Pakku asking about the Princess, because while Yue had been wearing a hood, a bit of her white hair had fallen out after several tiring hours of work, and she hadn't noticed to tuck it back in. That coupled with calling herself blessed by the moon, yeah he knew who she was. Pakku is like "oh, that's where the little witch went." He soooo wishes he could tell the chief.

Iroh then sends letters out to all the main White Lotus bases asking for anything on the Lián Jué Zhě. Jin is shocked to learn the book she found on the subject has been sent off to a port town in the colonies, and then very relieved to learn the town was close to Jeong-Hui.

Chiyo and Jeong-Hui take a little trip down the river and along the coast. Jin helps them find the White Lotus base. That's the first time anyone ever sees the Blue Spirit. Uncle Iroh does not get his book.


	8. Race To Rescue The 41st

(A brief interlude) I got thinking about languages in avatar, so here's how I think it would be

The Southern and Eastern Air Isles are connected (I looked it up and I don't think they actually are in canon, I think like three of those belong to the Earth Kingdom, but they have enought land, so in this story that whole string of islands is the Air Nation), but they’re also spread out, so you can see that they go, from left to right, from an oranges yellow, to a pale greenish yellow. My thought here is that there would be a lot of back and forth from the two air temples, with lots of little rest stop villages in between, so it's the same language, but the dialects and accents change as you go along the islands.

Enough airbenders survived that the languages survived. At least in writing, the verbal part probably got a bit more diverse over the hundred years the pockets of Airbenders were separated, but between Suki on Kyoshi Island were they had more interactions with the Air Nomad's than the Earth Kingdom (because of Chin's people) and Luyu, the cluster wouldn't have too much trouble talking with anyone form that area.

You can also see a bit of Southern Water Tribe Blue along the southern coast of some of the Southern Air Islands, as well as some Southern Earth Kingdom green on the Northern Coast of the Eastern Air Islands. Obviously I think those nations would have a bit of influence on those coasts because of proximity, and Airbender's nomadic traveling lifestyle. They picked up a thing or two. I think in these areas, it would be more like a hand full of borrowed words.

For the Si Wong Desert, it's said in Rise of Kyoshi something like the Si Wong people don’t share their culture with outsiders, so I figure they don’t share their language either, this also works because there’s a mountain range between the desert and the Southern Earth Kingdom, and a river between them and the Ba Sing Se continent. Those would create natural barriers for languages to diverse and evolve from one another. It’s a totally different color though, to indicate the Si Wong people probably deliberately changed their language so much just to make it different from the rest of the Earth Kingdom. This is the only language the cluster doesn't know, but after Jin meets Professor Zei, who makes a billion trips to the Si Wong desert and has to know their language at least somewhat, she gets him to teach her what he knows.

The continent where Ba Sing Se is located, the one where the Desert is located, and the one where the Fire Nation Colonies are located all have three different languages, the original Earth Language where the colonies are located is going extinct, you can see it migrating a little into the the Ba Sing Se continent as refugees have fled the Fire Nation.

Because Jeong-Hui lives right on the border of the language barrier, he's the only one in the cluster who's naturally bilingual from before the cluster formed.

The Western Air Isles have their own Languages, which, along with the Fire Nations Language, is a descendant of the Sun Warriors original language, so the Western Air and Fire Languages probably sound similar in accent to people hearing them that don’t speak either, as well as probably a few similar words and grammar, but they’re totally different languages. The Western Air Language is still spoken by the Sun Warriors (but they don’t call it whatever the Air Nomads called it).

You can see a bit of Northern Water Tribe blue along the northern coast of the Ba Sing Se Continent, right where the Northern Air Temple is. That's because even though the Air Nomad's travel a lot, there’s a mountain range between them and the rest of the continent so they probably weren't getting as many visitors from the Earth Kingdom, but the North Air Temple is the closest civilized place on the continent for the people of Agna Qel'a to travel to. So the people of the Northern Air Temple and nearby settlements probably spoke a dialect of the Northern Water Tribe Language, rather than something like the Earth Kingdom’s Language.

Also, even though they're both shades of blue, the Northern and Southern Water Tribes have completely different languages. Like there is nothing in common there at all. They're just too far apart with so little contact, it's just not physable.

It's not colored on the map, but Ba Sing Se probably has its own unique accent very different from its continent.

I wish I'd thought about languages earlier, but now I'm just picturing the kids when they were ten and just starting to figure out their connection, slipping up and speaking each other's languages to people in their lives and those people being like "what gibberish just came out of your mouth?"

Ty Lee probably liked learning her ancestor's language through Lóngwěi, I imagine her family knows it as written, but probably doesn't speak it very well.

I imagine Teo's village was a Coastal Town, flooded in a hurricane or Tsunami, so his language is the same as the one spoken by the Northern Air Nomads. (End interlude)

\---

As soon as Zuko returns to his ship, and the Wani has set sail from the Western Air Isles, he addresses the crew. (Yes they're confused about the healed scar, but after he explains the following, they get he was just trying to make sure he could get to whatever healer was up there. They're not gonna blame him)

He tells them his mission is finding the Avatar. He makes it clear he expects to never find the Avatar. He makes it clear that they're all effectively banished along with him, that it's clearly a permanent arrangement. He says he doesn't care what they did to land themselves banished along with him. He makes it clear he's going to do things that are considered treason to the Fire Nation at some point in the very near future, and offers them the chance to leave as soon as they make port in the colonies, and take their chances on a new life there.

Everyone on the crew already knew they were effectively banished. They were all Navy screw ups in one way or another, with a resentment to the Fire Lord or Fire Nation for one reason or another. A few of them had family though, and they didn't want consequences following them back to their loved ones. Zuko lets them go, and promises he'll get their families out of the Fire Nation to join them in the colonies. When asked how, he's just like "don't worry about it."

Ty Lee writes letters to their families and tells them where to meet their loved ones in the colonies. Fortunately this is an easier operation than when they smuggled out Yanli, and all it takes for those families is the knowledge of where to go. No one was watching them, and no one noticed the few families of Zuko's crew disappearing.

The rest of them are pretty ride or die for Zuko for a) being a fucking abuse victim of his megalomanical dictator dad and having fought back, and b) being honest with them about the situation and giving them an out.

So legit the first thing Zuko does after dropping off his few crew men who wanted out is devise a plan for how to get the 41st division out of the line of fire. They're being sent up the channel and through the Serpent's Pass to the forests south of Ba Sing Se. 

They know it's too risky for Jin to do or say anything on her own from inside the walls, so Zuko sends a letter to the White Lotus inside the walls anonymously (slipping one of Uncle's White Lotus tiles in the envelope as was costume), hoping that they can do something. Zuko wishes he could head for them via the neutral (if tentatively so) territory of Chameleon Bay, but if word got back to his father that he's been sighted trying to interfere with the very battalion he'd been banished over, there was no telling what would happen. Likely his banishment would become an execution, with every available ship and soldier hunting up down.

When Suki's mom had seen what happened to Suki because of what had happened to Princes Zuko, which had happened because of the war, and his attempt to save his own doomed citizens, it spurred something in her. As the head Kyoshi Warrior among all on the island, she'd called a meeting of all the adult warriors, and presented her case for entering the war. The next day they were packing their things, and preparing their daughters to defend the Island alone.

Suki's stomach was filled with butterflies as she watched The Kyoshi Warriors' small fleet- a total of three small ships- sail into the horizon.

Things get stomach-churning when Jeong-Hui's family get a delayed letter from the Pohuai Stronghold, from Chiyo, that her division, the 41st, was already set to see action. And that by the time they got the letter she would already be on her way to Ba Sing Se.

Jeong-Hui freaks out. They all freak out. Chiyo is basically all of their big sister.

Jeong-Hui wants to go straight after them, but Zuko tells him to wait, that he's on his way, and he'll come with a river boat they can use to chase the 41st. Suki wishes she'd gone with her mother. She hates not being able to help. They all do. If it was winter and her father and the men were back home, Katara would insist they leave right away and take her with them. If it weren't for the Si Wing Dessert and time being too short to go around it, Chí and Toph would already be on their way to the Great Western Lake. Yue suggests she and Hahn, and their group could sneak away from Agna Qel'a again, but they have the same issue of not having enough time to get where they need to be, and the fact a water tribe ship wouldn't make it five miles through Fire Nation Colonial waters. Everyone else also knows they can't come, and so they're all left sitting on their hands as Zuko and Jeong-Hui race to rescue the 41st.

The Cluster is suspicious of Iroh, after the book discussing the Lián Jué Zhé had been sent from Ba Sing Se to the very Port City the Wani was scheduled to dock at. They don't know it's him a hundred percent, but it couldn't be anyone else really. They all agree Uncle is a good person, but something in them just refused to be okay with Zuko telling his Uncle about all of them. It was a feeling like, if Uncle knew, he would hijack their connection, somehow. Make them use it his way, for the things _he_ thought they should. It was the idea that, if he knew about the White Lotus, or was somehow (how!?) a part of the organization, well, that was how they operated. They didn't ask the outside world what they wanted, the White Lotus simply assumed it knew best and acted on it (they were right most of the time thought, credit where credit's due). This went for everything from world politics, to what elder members thought younger one should be doing. Jin had more than once had to unsign herself up for earthbending lessons that some elder member had thought she needed, simply because they thought they knew best for her.

So this presented the problem of how to get rid of Uncle for long enough for Zuko to escape on the river boat without Uncle being able to follow.

That's where Lt. Jee comes in. He sees Zuko thinking too hard by the railing one night, and when Zuko says he feels like he needs to get away for awhile, but doesn't want his Uncle tailing him like a mother Turtleduck, Jee's like, "don't worry, I got your back."

So after Uncle heads to sleep that night, Zuko takes the river boat, and heads inland, and Jee and the crew leave port, heading out to open waters with the intent to meet Zuko south in another port town a few weeks later. It's a very good thing Jee never had children of his own to recklessly endanger. It was also a good thing that Zuko was technically the highest ranking commander of the crew of the Wani, and that Uncle couldn't over ride Zuko's orders to leave him alone for a while.

It's half a day's journey up the river to meet with Jeong-Hui, and the boat barely stops long enough, in the middle of the night no less, for Jeong-Hui to hop on board before the two of them are sailing up river once again.

Within the walls, the White Lotus gets Zuko's anonymous letter, and mercifully, one of the higher members has the confidence of General Sung, who's often stationed on the outer wall. So the military is aware there's going to be an attack, and that it's a trap. He agrees to be lenient on the battalion that attacks from the south, if it turns out to be true that they're untrained new recruits.

A week later, Zuko and Jeong-Hui just barely manage to catch up with the 41st, a day inland. The battalion is small, only perhaps 500 soldiers, it doesn't take long to find Chiyo. Chiyo's like super shocked at how close she came to death, but she's not totally surprised between having only signed up like a month ago and having no training, and knowing how the Fire Nation leaders could treat their own prince, let alone the colonial peasants that make up the 41st.

They know they can't just go up to the Fire Nation General leading their battalion and explain everything, so they, most specifically Teo and Luyu, come up with a sneaky little plan to run them off course before they even make it to Ba Sing Se. 

Jeong-Hui, when he'd originally bought the Blue Spirit mask at a stall at some street fair on their way to intercept the book about the Lián Jué Zhě, had bought two, for him and his sister each to have one. Zuko takes Chiyo's, and the two boys have fun the next night terrorizing the camp (Like seriously, Jeong-Hui's finally actually hanging out with Prince freaking Zuko! This is the best!), taking turns, and never being seen at the same time.

Everyone's on edge, but it's not enough to turn the troops around. Just one angry little spirit, they'll get off its territory and it'll leave them alone.

Accept it doesn't, and Chiyo keeps spearheading rumors "she's heard" about angry fire spirits that detest war and will do anything to prevent it, even killing both sides of a conflict themself.

And the Blue Spirit keeps following them. Ba Sing Se is within sight, and the troops have made camp for the night. Of course having Ba Sing Se in their sights, means they're also in Ba Sing Se's sights, and this is by design. The Fire Nation generals think this will distract the Earth Kingdom while they attack from the north. This is wrong of course, there are more than enough troops ready on the northern wall to combat the Fire Nation thanks to Zuko's tip off, but that doesn't mean General Sung doesn't have men watching the 41st in the south. And because they're being watched, the Earth Army gets a wonderfully clear view the next morning near dawn of 500 confused teenagers in adult's armor running around like headless pig-chickens, while a single man in a blue mask, sporting dao, no wait a bow, wait, dao- were there more than one of them, no one ever _saw_ more than one!?- were absolutely trashing the camp.

And then there was a line of fire between the camp and the Wall, a line of _rainbow fire_ and if it came from the Blue Spirit, it was surely because he _was_ a spirit, because he was easily visible on the other side of camp, fighting three earthbenders at once with his dao when the fires started.

When the rainbow fire started, that was enough for the troops. Their belongings had been going missing, a girl (Chiyo) had been kidnapped days ago, warning messages had been written in blood, and now the spirit was phasing in and out of existence right before them, and raising a wall of mythical fucking rainbow fire between them and The Wall! They knew when to cut their losses, and made a totally legitimate not hasty at all retreat.

The Earth Army lets the poor kids go.

The Fire Army wrote a very convincing report about a very large ambush of Earth Kingdom men that attacked the untrained children before they could make it to The Wall.

The Earth Army lets the northernern Fire Army attack and think they have the upper hand in the first half of the battle, so they don't know they had a mole.

Chiyo is mysteriously found "passed out" in the road by the troops as they make their retreat, and it's deemed a good sign that the spirit is pleased by their leaving.

Everybody in the cluster would be celebrating another victory, if they weren't sitting there trying to figure out how Jeong-Hui had managed to firebend with Lóngwěi while Zuko was busy across the camp, and unable to do his part of the plan.

The entire trip back to Jeong-Hui's town, he tried nonstop to fire bend again, but he couldn't make it work. Everyone takes turns trying to bend any element that isn't their own (or any element at all in Chí, Jeong-Hui, and Suki's cases) but they have no success either. They already thought there was no bending another element, or any element in the non-benders cases, before this and now they're lost on the rules of their connection all over again. 

When Jeong-Hui gets back homes his parents have their very understandable freak out, about where he's been, what he was doing, what he was thinking, and Jeong-Hui wishes he could tell them, but his dad is still loyal to the Fire Nation, and wouldn't approve of anything he's been doing with the cluster for all these years (and realistically it's not like his dad would go ratting him and the cluster out to the Fire Nation, but at the same time, you know, Jeong-Hui doesn't know that he wouldn't for _certain_ ) so Jeong-Hui suffers a talking to and a grounding, and still can't firebend again.

Chí's the one who comes up with a possibility for what happened with Lóngwěi and Jeong-Hui. He tells everyone about the Avatar State, how it gives the current avatar access to the power of all their past lives and makes them immensely powerful. He says the Avatar State, before it's mastered, is more of a defense mechanism, triggered when the avatar is in danger, or emotional, or stressed. He suggests that because Jeong-Hui was desperate enough, he managed to access Lóngwěi's firebending, because Zuk wasn't there on time to let Lóngwěi make the rainbow fire through _him_. This theory gets knocked down a peg when they remember times they were in danger and didn't bend or bend another element, like Zuko's Agni Kai. They'd all reacted, and they'd only firebent through Zuko, just like normal.

Katara suggests proximity, that maybe it wasn't that Lóngwěi had firebent through Jeong-Hui just because Jeong-Hui was desperate, but because Jeong-Hui was close to Zuko, that he wasn't using Lóngwěi's firebending, but rather Zuko's. It would explain Jeong-Hui bending on the battlefield, but Ty Lee and Zuko, being the only one in consistent proximity, had never used each other's, because they'd never used their bending near each other.

Of course this theory needs testing, and so Chí heads down to Gaoling to see if he can unlock some earthbending through Toph. When he meets her at the Earth Rumble arena, they have their usual period of adjusting to their double vision of seeing and feeling their surroundings, but this time Chí tries to suss out if he's just feeling what Toph feels, or if he's feeling things on his own in her presence. He takes his shoes off and they practice a bit of earthbending on the arena with Xin Fu and the Boulder watching, but after a while they determine that no, Chí hasn't picked up earthbending in her presence.

Then a boulder comes flying at Chí from the audience standing where Toph's Very-Evil-Apparently dads are no longer just sitting.

"Guess we have to go back to that desperation theory of yours." Toph shrugs, sending another boulder at Chí herself.

Chí spends a while gracelessly dodging flying boulders, and trying not to lose his footing as the ground shifts underneath him. Toph, Xin Fu, and the Boulder of course are professionals and aren't gonna let Chí get hurt, but they make it a really close thing so Chí doesn't totally know that. They don't stop when he gets tired, really trying to push him.

And it totally works. The first bit of Earth bending Chí does is use seismic sense, something he already had a decent feel for, to feel someone running behind him. It hardly does any good to feel what they're doing, but he notices it was definitely himself feeling it. He doesn't improve much for the next half hour while he keeps getting rocks chucked at him, and yells at him to retaliate, but eventually, retaliate he does. It wasn't in fear or desperation, because as close as it came, he wasn't really afraid of getting hurt. It just came from being tired and annoyed, and wanting to stop. He stomps the ground and a pillar of earth forms under the Boulder's feet. It's a tiny pillar, barely a foot tall, and there wasn't enough force under it to do more than trip the Boulder up, but it was Earthbending, and it can from Chí!

They call it quits after that, and celebrate with Xin Fu and the Boulder buying the kids dinner before Toph has to sneak back home.

The cluster is ecstatic to learn that they can technically bend all the elements. Ty Lee lemints not knowing so she could try Firebending all that time while Zuko was home. When someone points out how they also seem to need to be stressed or in danger, Zuko says knowing Azula was around probably would have been enough, and they all have a sardonic little laugh at that.

Even though Chí isn't much of a fighter, or particularly interested in learning earthbending, he keeps going to Goaling to learn because it's a nice distraction from the fact he still doesn't know what his place in the cluster is. He's the only one worried about their place or the reason he's a Lián Jué Zhě, he knows, but he can't help it. Through their lessons Chí gets better and better at earthbending in Toph's present until he can do it semi-regularly without the need of stress or danger. He never manages to do it outside of her presence, but at least they know it's a proximity and practice sort of situation with sharing bending.

Ty Lee's only a few sets off from mastering airbending when the circus returns to Caldera that summer. Ty Lee doesn't even hesitate. She sneaks out one night and shows the Ringmaster her skills, he says she's hired as an acrobat just as soon as she gets her parents permission. That puts a damper on things, she thought you were supposed to just be able to run off to the circus no strings attached.

"This isn't the Earth Kingdom dear, we do have standards in the Fire Nation." the ringmaster says, reading her expression.

But Ty Lee isn't discouraged. She needs to get away from the capital, away from Azula who's become insufferably smug about her unofficial ascension to Crown Princess, and if her nastiness hadn't gotten any worse, it had become unbearable without Zuko there to share the burden. And sure, there was Mai, but Mai didn't always have a problem with Azula if Azula was doing something mean to an Outsider and not one of them.

So she goes to her parents and she explains. She tells them she feels like she just has to go out and see the world, that Caldera is too confining these days, and she wants more. Her parents are immediately understanding, they're like "yeah that's the Air Nomad in you, it makes since. At your age if you lived in the Western Air Temple, you would have been all over the world by this point. We could always tell you were the most connected to your root, you have our blessing."

Ty Lee was also nervous what the cluster would think of her leaving Caldera, cause she'd assumed with Zuko gone, it would fall to her to be their _in_ with what the Fire Nation royal's were doing, but the rest of them are all like "nah get the heck out of there, there's no tell what info Azula actually gets, or what she'd tell you, it's not worth you being in the line of fire and miserable."

Zuko's especially happy that Ty Lee's away from his sister.

So the last night the circus is in town, while all the workers are taking down the tents and loading animals into the caravan, Ty Lee finds the Ringmaster and shows him the signed papers. They're basically apprenticeship/foster papers because Ty Lee is a minor, saying the Ringmaster is responsible for her health and safety, and education in her craft, and if she's hurt the parents will come after him. But other than that they recognize the general dangers of what Ty Lee plans to do, and give permission for her to go.

She's so happy when she leaves with the circus the next morning, putting all the negative energy of Caldera behind her.

She travels through the Fire Nation for the rest of fall, even geting to sneak a visit with her "cousins" when they reach the outer isles, and then she learned that the circus actually makes its rounds in the colonies too, and she and Jeong-Hui, and Zuko plan a visit.

Ty Lee also writes to her family and Mai, who's actually a little more expressive on paper than she is in real life. She doesn't write to Azula, but Azula doesn't write to her either.

\---

Of course, things aren't going as smoothly as the kids think with not letting Uncle know what's going on, because like, Jin is still pretty low rank in the White Lotus, so while she knows the Pai Sho tiles are important, she didn't yet know that higher ups in the organization have uniquely made tiles especially for themselves, so when Zuko used Iroh's Pai Sho tile to send a message to Ba Sing Se, he basically announces shinanagines where happening.

So when the White Lotus got Zuko's letter and saw the tile, and Iroh's signed letter about the 41st without the tile, they sent it back to Iroh like "hey stuff going on with your crew probably." and Uncle connects the dots. He knows Zuko has connections around the world somehow, with the Princess of the Northern Water Tribe, and someone in the White Lotus in Ba Sing Se, and clearly whoever the Blue Spirit in the colonies was, that has stolen back the book on the Lián Jué Zhě.

The jig would be up if Iroh sent a letter saying they had a mole in Ba Sing Se, because suspicion would immediately go to Jin and her still unidentified co-conspirators on the outside who'd smuggled in Yanli all those years ago.

But Iroh doesn't know all that. He does know that he would _like_ to know what his nephew knows, and what he's doing, without the White Lotus interfering, or them giving him crap for having a mole himself, so he just tells them he sent the signed letter, and then he thought it might have got lost in a storm, so he sent the other one and just forgot the sign it.

Meanwhile he keeps a close eye on Zuko. He gets nowhere beyond that for quite a while


	9. A Year Of Trials

The day they turn forteen, Jeong-Hui goes down to the Pohuai Stronghold and shows his skills. The person in charge of the Yuyan archers is impressed, plus he has the word of the guys from the festival who'd found Jeong-Hui that he's this good consistently, so from there Jeong-Hui is the youngest archer in the training program. He starts off the best of them too. Nowhere near as good at the adults, but still.

Everyone knows Chiyo at this point for being the girl that got kidnapped by spirits and lived to tell the tale ("not that she remembers anything from the spirit world" of course) and for being absolutely kick ass on the field, so when her lil bro shows up and has all that talent? They accept him quick, and yeah. He adjusts to army life really well, and he's so happy to be getting professional instruction.

(Also, just thought, Chiyo and Jeong-Hui definitely practiced their skills together as kids, with Chiyo moving rock targets, and Jeong-Hui trying to shoot them.)

What Jeong-Hui doesn't adjust as well to is the vow of silence. All trainees have to be silent for certain times of day, and are allowed to speak other times. Jeong-Hui gets reprimanded a lot for talking, shouting, laughing, sometimes it's not even him, it's one of the visiting Lián Jué Zhě, who can't always help it. But they all get better about not talking when visiting him, and as Jeong-Hui learns sign language, the others learn, so he talks with their hands when he visits them (so that no one in the stronghold sees him signing conversations to himself on his end).

Toph is the only one that there's some trouble with this method, as Jeong-Hui doesn't know sign language by feel, but through eyesight, so Toph can't share his instincts to read what her hands are doing visually. Chí's gotten in the habit of coming down to Gaoling every couple weeks even though the Earthbending training has stopped, so they practice signing, with Chí actually telling her what he's signing so she has words to associate with certain movements. Every obstacle can be overcome with effort, practice, creativity, and a will to try.

On that note, Lóngwěi makes a friend.

There's a girl in his tribe that's never spoken. It wasn't that she couldn't hear, or couldn't make sounds- she laughed very loudly in fact, Lóngwěi will learn- or didn't know how to. She just, didn't. She had her own sign language, but not every many outside of her family knew how to understand her hands saying more than "hello" "goodbye" "where's my mom/dad/brother"

She also happens to live on the outskirts of town like Lóngwěi's family, just one hill over. So one day, when he thinks he's got a decent vocabulary of signs, he goes to her house and signs hello at her, hanging upside down in a tree.

She looks at him and raises an eyebrow. 

He signs "my name is Lóngwěi, I live on that hill" he used the signs for 'dragon' and 'great' to sign his name the Jeong-Hui had chosen.

The girl just scowls at him, before swinging down. She walks up to Lóngwěi, still frowning, punches him in the shoulder and marches back to her house.

"Hey, what the fuck!?" Lóngwěi, not one to be discouraged, follows after her.

She disappears into her house and comes out with her brother.

"What's her problem, I was just saying hi!?" Lóngwěi shouts.

The girl signs something furiously, and Lóngwěi isn't sure he knows any of those signs. She was also going fast, but…

"Ixchel says you were making fun of her." Her brother says.

"I was not!" 

"She says you came up to her and started moving your hands around in fake signs, Lóngwěi."

"They weren't fake!"

"They didn't mean anything to her."

"Well how was I supposed to know that?"

"Well if you go making up signs, how would she know?"

"I didn't make them up! I was just trying to be nice!"

Ixchel moves her hands in a flurry of signs, and her brother translates "so where'd you learn hand signs if not from me, if you didn't make them up."

"From Jeo-" from the Fire Nation boy I talk to in my head some time… "from the spirits!" He crosses his arms and turns away, turns his nose up. "Everyone knows the spirits talk to me."

And then she laughs, loud and mocking, doubling over. After a minute, her hands sign something shakely.

"The spirits taught you a fake language!" Her brother translates, starting to laugh himself.

Lóngwěi goes beet red. "They did not! I know every language in the world almost!"

When this doesn't get more than cackling "yeah except ours!" from the siblings, Lóngwěi turns back to his house, stomping away with a shout.

"Yeah whatever! That's what I get for trying to be nice to you! I was trying to be your friend but you're not worth it!"

The boy's poor feelings, he's so embarrassed.

Popping Pod Blossoms are native to the Western Air Isle. They're a three foot wildflower, with three to four flowers per stalk. The flowers are made up of five large pink petals on the outer rim, and hundreds of tiny yellow petals in the middle. When the Pod Blossom is mature enough, and is ready to spread its seeds, its big pink petals close, forming a pod about the size of a peach, and dry up. One can tell a pod blossom is ready to pop once the pink petals have dried up completely, and when they pop, they release a cloud of white fluffy fluff that carries the seeds on the wind to a new home.

This is relevant because one just hit Lóngwěi in the back of the head.

It's the day after Lóngwěi failed to make friends with Ixchel, and he was on his way into town with the usual group of kids, to the temple to do his duties (get watched over by the Priests while he did mundane chores all day)

When he turns around, Ixchel is standing there in the path, tossing another pod up and down. She smirks when she sees him, and starts to sign something, pointing at herself, but Lóngwěi doesn't give her the time, before he's ripping a dried out pod off a stim nearby and hurling it at her chest. It meets its target and explodes in her face. Lóngwěi dips into the field of flowers before Ixchel can clear the flying fluff from her vision. Before he knows it, some other kid is yelling "Pod Blossom battle!" And the sound of shrieking and laughing fills the air.

When Lóngwěi's collected enough pods in his arms, he jumps back out into the playing field of the path, but between all the fluff in the air and the other kids running around, he can't spot his target.

Until another pod wacks him in the shoulder.

"Hah! I'm gonna get you so hard!" Lóngwěi throws another pod at her but she dodges this time.

The battle lasts probably ten minutes before the kids have kicked up enough fluff that it's carried into the town, and the adults have come to get them. It wasn't like pod blossom battles were against any rules, but it was rather discouraged to go doing it on the side of town where the wind would blow it into town. Now the streets would be covered in fluff all day.

"Who started this?" One of the adults asks.

"Lóngwěi did!" One of the kids calls out.

"What!? I did not!"

"Really?" The elder asks, disbelieving.

The trouble with being a troublemaker, was that sometimes you got in trouble for troublemaking trouble you didn't make.

"Yeah really!"

"Then who did?"

"I'm not a snitch." Lóngwěi sniffs, crossing his arms, but just as he does, someone slides up next to him, and slings an arm around his shoulder.

It's Ixchel, and she's smiling obnoxiously bright, raising her hand proudly in the air.

"You and Lóngwěi started it?"

Ixchel nods.

The two of them end up tasked with sweeping fluff out of the temple stables all day. Every time they get one section clear, the fluff would just settle somewhere else, and it takes all day before they get enough of it out that the animals in the stables won't be sick the next day.

Lóngwěi doesn't speak to Ixchel the whole time, but the second they're out of town, and back on the path he turns to her. "What in Koh's name is your issue with me? Why'd you tell them I started it with you? Why'd you start it at all?"

She points in between them, and then makes a sign he doesn't know.

He says as much.

She rolls her eyes, before slinging her arm over his shoulder like she had that morning, and pointing between them again.

"We're friends?" Lóngwěi questions.

Ixchel nods, before pulling her arm away and making the unknown hand sign again.

"Oh." Is all Lóngwěi says. Then, "this is how I learned the sign for friend." He shows her what he'd learned from Jeong-Hui.

They spend the rest of the walk home pointing at things along their way like trees and the pod blossoms and the sky and comparing signs.

They actually hang out a lot after that. Ixchel has just as much a taste for troublemaking as Lóngwěi, but she was apparently better at not getting caught then he was, which was why no one knew.

"You wanna see something amazing?" Lóngwěi asks her one day while they're climbing the big tree between their houses. When Ixchel nods, he tells her to meet him here at midnight.

After they meet up, they sneak into town, and then into the temple. Lóngwěi leads her down a flight of stairs underground, and then down a very long tunnel.

The path leads them to a very, very, very large cave where the dragon Rahn is curled up and sleeping. Or pretending to sleep. There are several very large torches lit around the cave, keeping it almost uncomfortably toasty within for the humans, and Rahn's eye gleams bright as he opens one to look at them as they approach. Both teens bow respectfully at the Master.

"I wished to show Ixchel the blessing we received this morning, if Master Rahn would permit it?"

The dragon only closes its eyes before one massive wing moves and reveals a wriggling little baby dragon.

Ixchel gasps.

"One of the eggs Iroh if the Fire Nation brought us has finally hatched. The priests are putting off telling the tribe, because they fear the baby may die, it's awfully small and weak, and they'd rather deliver sad news alone, than happy news followed by tragedy. But I think she'll make it. C'mon"

Lóngwěi pulls her closer to the baby dragon and the Master, and they spend hours just watching the little albino dragon sleep.

And then they do that several more nights. Until the baby is strong enough to start crawling around the cave, and opens her eyes, and starts making sparks. She loves Lóngwěi the most out of all the disciples of the Sun, and the others just can't figure out WHY. She loves Ixchel even more. As soon as she was strong enough to crawl, she'd found her way around Ixchel's shoulders, and into her thick, long hair where she ended up falling asleep many many nights.

Lóngwěi really liked having a friend in real life.

\---

I feel like I don't mention Luyu or Teo enough in these chapters, it's mostly just that I don't have anything for them to do. Luyu's little cave city is doing well, she has nothing to do other than update the elder on the goings on of the outside world every now and again, finish mastering airbending, and help her family with their fishing haul every now and again. She's definitely helping Ty Lee finish her mastery of airbending, they'll both be masters but the Fall Equinox, so Ty Lee will sit in on Luyu's tattooing, as if she was getting the tattoo too (she won't get one in real life because if some one like Azula sees it, they would wonder what it was about, and then if they saw ANOTHER Air Nomad with it,,, that wouldn't end well.)

Teo's life is going pretty great considering he has no idea his dad is being blackmailed by the Fire Nation war minister, he just knows sometimes someone spots the Fire Nation navy on the horizon, and all flying is called off until they're gone again. He's probably gotten a lot better at archiving the new history of the northern Air Nomads. I imagine in this AU where most of the new residents are Air Nomad descendants, while the temple still gets renovated over the years, everything that can be saved is. All wall paintings get a detailed replica painted to scale that can be securely stored below ground, before said wall is destroyed, all statues small enough are moved below ground as well, and if they're too big, a model is made and stored in its place. They try to be a little more respectful of the culture than in canon, and try to leave alone what they can, but ultimately a lot of stuff still gets destroyed in the renovations, but at least it's not totally lost and gone forever.

Teo's dad is working on the wingsuits for the airbenders, because there's a bigger demand in this AU and you know he'd be intrigued by that.

\---

In the fall, when the circus comes to the colonies, Jeong-Hui, Ty Lee, and Zuko all meet up. The boys (plus uncle, and some of the Wani crew) watch Ty Lee on opening night and are the first on their feet for her standing ovation. Some time in the week Zuko and Ty Lee sneak away and go on a little date. They had a nice dinner, and realized this was the most authentic they'd ever been with each other in public, and it felt so nice not to be hiding anything from prying eyes. Like, its wasn't that they didn't often have deep, private conversation, share secrets they couldn't with anyone else in their heads, but alone in real life with no one watching, Zuko could hold her hand under the table at dinner, and Ty Lee could hold his arm as they walked through the town, and she could hug him when he won her a stuffed turtleduck at the circus carnival.

And he could kiss her goodnight at the door of her trailer, before returning to the Wani.

Yeah, they had a really nice time.

A few days later, they're hanging out with Jeong-Hui, and Jeong-Hui manages to make flames, and then actually manages to bend a small little breeze (I imagine a little bit of Chí's bending-through-other's practice wore off on all of them. What can I say, there's just benefits of having a collective skill set with eleven other people).

"Haha! I'm the Avatar!" Jeong-Hui exclaims, punching a small flame out of his fist.

And well, that triggers some thinking among the Lián Jué Zhě. See, because, they'd already given thought to why the spirits had melded their minds and their souls, and they'd passed on the idea that they were some new avatar replacement a long while back, because it had seemed too grandiose, too self important. But then, this…

One person bending (if weakly) two elements at once. And, well, if at least four of them got together, one bender of each type, well, you'd basically have four Avatars at once… and the spirits wouldn't just, go doing that without reason. would they? If it wasn't for _that_ purpose?

And well, they all together knew the workings of the world, from the perspective of every corner of the world almost. Wasn't it the Avatar's job to have knowledge of and respect for all ways of life?

And it usually took the Avatar twelve years to master their three non-native elements and the avatar state, only after they were sixteen, but the Lián Jué Zhě were effectively masters of all four at the age of fourteen.

And, well, helping people through the White Lotus, and what they'd done to help the 41st. Wouldn't those be things the Avatar would have done.

And that's how it hits.

The Lián Jué Zhě _were_ made to replace the avatar.

That hits hard, because if the Avatar was still in the world, it would be their job to handle that which imbalanced the world. And that which imbalanced the world right now was the Fire Nation. And if they had to deal with the Fire Nation, they had to deal with the one in charge of the Fire Nation. And that was Ozai. And they couldn't do that.

They couldn't face Ozai. They couldn't face that man they saw in their nightmare, the man who even the mention of could send a shiver down their spines. No.

They were too scared of him to ever entertain confronting the man who'd hurt them. And so they all decisively ignore what Jeong-Hui had said. What they all knew now, soul deep, was the truth.

Zuko returns to the Wani and Jeong-Hui to the Stronghold, and none of the three of them visit in person for the rest of the circus' stay.

The cluster is more strained and distant from each other than ever.

And they ignore the looming truth.

And they ignore it some more

They ignore it all the way through to the next spring. By then Katara and Yue were finally deemed waterbending masters by a very reluctant Pakku, Luyu and Ty Lee had joined Teo in the ranks of Airbending Master. Lóngwěi shows an affinity for animal care after the pod blossom incident, and gets an apprenticeship with the stable hand in the temple. Zuko finds a weapons master in the colonies, and spends the winter being reacquainted with his dao, while Uncle continue drilling him on the basics of firebending in the hope of getting his flame to return (Zuko's justifiably terrified of his own flame right now.)

Jeong-Hui is still in training, still doing well getting noticed by lots of higher ups. Chí's been almost non-stop meditating in attempt to contact the spirits for answers as to why they were the avatar's replacement, what were they meant to do from here, why the Banyan tree hadn't spoken to him since he was _nine years old._

Suki and her girls get into their first real fight with a ship of pirates that attempt to ransack her village. They manage to give the pirates a hard enough time of it that, while it wasn't really a victory- they only managed to kill maybe two, and injure a few, and if they'd wanted too, the pirates could have overcome the Kyoshi Warriors before backup arrived- the girls would happily take the boost to their confidence. Suki writes to her mother and though the reply is slow to come, the woman is beyond proud of Suki.

Jin kisses her best friend on the first day of the new year, and Hoshi kisses her back.

Toph does something, well, different. There's a gathering in Gaoling, a big party for all the lower class citizens. Well, it was for everyone, but the upper class Merchants and Nobles had no intention of going. Infact, when Toph's parents received the invitation at lunch one day, they laughed, before telling a servant to drop the letter in the trash.

Toph had really wanted to go, so she decided she damn well would. The next time she went to visit Xin Fu and the Boulder she arranged to sneak out and go with them.

It's a fancy affair, but when Toph worries she'll show up too fancy, the Boulder's like "The Boulder has three nieces. He will borrow some of their clothes, and he will do the Blind Bandit's hair."

And yeah. The Boulder totally has a Proud Dad™ moment when they see Toph in her totally girly dress with her hair done up all nice (I mean, he totally has these moments when she kicks ass too). Xin Fu thinks she looks so incredibly bizarre, but she can tell he's being honest when he says she looks nice. Then he tells her if any boys give her shit or won't leave her alone, she should do like she does in the arena and kick their ass.

The night goes off without a hitch. Toph introduces herself as Jin, Xin Fu and the Boulder's Daughter. People are delicate with her at first, until she landed a solid punch to the nose of a boy who was telling her what a good time they could have if he could and hang out with her some time. She talked with other kids, and some adults, who didn't talk down to her any more than the did the other kids, which was tolerable because it was at least equal and not because she was blind and "helpless"

The food was good, somewhere between the food at the Earth Rumble, and the food at home. And then there was the dancing. Toph had almost worn shoes to the party, but her dress was long enough to cover her bare feet, and when she could actually properly feel the rhythm of the music through her feet (something she was never allowed to do with the tutors at home) she found the activity rather fun, and spun herself silly with one partner after another, boys and girls alike. She even got to dance with The Boulder and Xin Fu.

Over all the whole affair still wasn't really her thing, but she'd enjoyed getting to actually go to a party for once, and interacting with others like a real person, and the memory of the night is one she looks on with fondness (but really, she won't be doing it again if she can help it).

A hurricane hits the northern pass between the Northern Air Temple and the Northern Water Tribe. A hurricane like this usually hits about every couple of decades. In centuries past, the temper and the water tribe would band together, sending masters of both bending to each other's lands when they saw signs of a storm forming, so that between the air and waterbending, they would be able to minimize the damage of the storm to both lands.

Yue knows about this, and her and Teo liment not being able to do so now. This year, it hits the Northern Air Temple lightly, which means it will hit the Water Tribe hard. Fortunately because it comes from the East to the West, Teo is able to give Yue a day's heads up. Yue tells her dad what's up, all "I saw a vision" and at this point she's pulled that enough time, they just go with it, and they're able to pull a line of waterbender defense just in time. Yue forces her way to the front lines right beside Master Pakku, and this earns a bit of actual respect from the old man as she refuses to give up fighting the massive waves the lap at their City Wall for almost a day and a night, only taking breaks when the Master did.

Summer brings them all peace. And their fifteen birthday is a quiet affair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ixchel's name is a Mayan or Aztec goddess' name, it means Rainbow Lady, which I thought was fitting since the sun warriors worship the dragons and the rainbow fire is a blessing. Ixchel is often depicted with a snake in her hair so I made a little reference to that with the baby dragon in my Ixchel's hair.


	10. THERE'S A WEIRD FUCKING GLOWY THING IN THE WATER

So fall comes back around, and Zuko of course plans to visit his girlfriend, but Uncles like "nah, lets go check out this neat thing on the other side of the world" (on the east coast of the easter peninsula of Chameleon Bay)

This is a White Lotus gathering. Like, they're having a whole conference because someone somewhere had a vision that the world was gonna be thrown in a lot of turmoil soon. And considering they've been at war for like 95 years that's saying a LOT. So yeah. They want to get all the big names together and assess what they've got on their side and create some contingency plans.

And Uncle is still trying to figure out how Zuko's connected to these Lián Jué Zhě. So he won't just leave him alone in the colonies with Ty Lee for a few weeks.

Jin lucks out and gets invited to the conference with the few elders going from Ba Sing Se, she's basically there to take notes and see how things are done higher up. This is the first time she's EVER left the walls, as herself, so you know she's excited. Yanli and Hoshi know where she's at, but her parents think she's going with the flower shop owner on an educational little field trip to the farming lands between the outer and inner wall.

The meeting is in a really big port city that hardly notices the influx of people the White Lotus generates.

Jin spends most of her time in meetings and WHOA BOY is it something when Uncle shows up in grand Master uniform.

And oh fuck, so that's why Pakku left the North Pole.

And is that, uh, Jeong Jeong the deserter!?

And Zuko's swordmaster, Piandao?!?!

What the hell is this?

So yeah, not that it was a competition, but the Lián Jué Zhě are one up on secrets over the White Lotus, now thank you very much.

And yeah, lots of talking about the future and fate of the world,,,, well the Lián Jué Zhě are listening in of course, and they take notes, and they totally get that you know, balance of the world and all that are on them now, and they should really be doing something about it, but,,,,

Well the White Lotus seem to have everything in order for the time being…

Uncle even offers up the Wani as a smuggling ship for the White Lotus, and considering it being anything from food for refugees, to actually refugees, Zuko could be mad about Uncle going behind his back like that but he's not. He'll just "catch it" quick and tell his crew to continue like normal.

And the White Lotus talk about the Lián Jué Zhé, or really just that they're definitely Princess Yue and Prince Zuko but Uncle hasn't managed to get anything out of Zuko. They talk about how like, they definitely have an ally the colonies, and in the Wall, and "We've done a thorough investigation into all members, including checking their outgoing and incoming mail, and we have no idea who tipped them off about the book, everyone's clean. Iroh you might just have to come out and ask your nephew."

Well Jin's glad to know her mail was getting gone through, thank the spirits for telepathy! And the fact they're being so invasive, fuck, Zuko's NOT gonna let anything slip.

Iroh almost makes the suggestion that Ty Lee is their colonial ally, but the timing for the book on the Lián Jué Zhě being stolen, and Ty Lee even being with the circus don't match up. Obviously he knows nothing of Jeong-Hui.

They're not sure who the Blue Spirit is, because they know the first time he was spotted, Zuko was on the Wani with Uncle, but the second time the costumed vigilante could have been Zuko, save for the fact of his poor marksmanship with a bow and arrow. As far as Uncle knows, Zuko sucks with a bow and arrow. Jeong-Hui breaths a deep (but silent) sigh of relief at not having been found out.

So near the end of the conference, Jin and Zuko finally find time to sneak out and meet up. They go out for a nice lunch, Zuko lets her spend all his pocket change on things at the market, and when they get a chance, they sneak off to an empty beach, find an alcove, and they practice bending. Jin finds she likes fire bending more than Earthbending, even if she can barely do more than heat up the sand beneath their feet. Zuko finds sandbending weird, like, he kicks around a few boulders, but the sand just, doesn't act right (Toph agrees that sand and her earthbending style don't mix, as she feels the sand through Jin's toes).

Before Jin and Zuko split up and head back into town, Zuko gives Jin something to give to Yanli, for Chihiro's third birthday coming up in spring. I don't have any ideas what it could be, but it's something special that all Fire Nation kids get on their third birthday, he didn't want Chihiro to be left out (or for Yanli to feel like she was losing even more of her own heritage hiding behind the walls).

On the way back to where she's staying with the White Lotus, Jin gets caught up in some trouble, it's the city's authorities chasing a group of people, some clearly earthbenders just having no trouble tearing up the streets and building to get away from the police.

Zuko's on completely the opposite side of the town, and while he's obviously on his way, Jin's alone for a minute, and yeah, of course she is about to help out, it's just her instinct. But also, she can't been seen, no one in the White Lotus knows she can fight, let alone to the extent she might be about to, so she ducks into a large clothing shop, and quickly chooses the first thing that matches her Lián Jué Zhě name Jeong-Hui had given her. 

It's a lovely white Hanfu with lavender flowers decorating the half below her knees and three quarts of the sleeve, it also has transparent mint green silk floats sewn into the back and along the sleeves. Jin guesses this was meant to be a costume for some performer who'd yet to come pick it up, but they'll just have to get something else, Jin quickly steals the outer rob and ties it on over her plan one, before also grabbing the matching lavender and white kitsune half mask that was on display next to the costume, and a green scarf to cover the lower half of her face. At this point, employees of the shop are surrounding her demanding she take off the costume, but she literally just dumps all the "pocket change" Zuko had given her, and that's probably still more than enough to pay for the dress. And when that shuts up the employees she makes a run for it.

Using Toph's Earthbeing she manages to catch up with the chase and makes a grand appearance by dive bombing from one of the roofs right onto one of the bad guys. Using earthbending to slam him into a little crater. 

Ty Lee does a bit of chi blocking for the bad guys bending, before she parkors Jin up a wall and onto a roof as the Authorities finally catch up.

Of course they're confused when all the bad guys are doing is yelling "she took my bending!" "I can't bend!" "What happened!?" "What the hell is she!?" "It's a spirit!"

Well of course the authorities look up where the bad guys are looking and see Jin just chilling on the roof

"Afternoon officers, thought you could use a little help."

"Huh, thanks I guess?"

Of course as they actually go in to arrest the bad guys, not all the bad guys were benders, and even the benders had weapons, so a fight breaks out in the city square. Jin jumps back into the fight, using earthbending and hand to hand, and once about four of the nine bad guys are subdued, and only one of the four officers is still up to fight with her. Zuko finally shows up. of course, now they've drawn a crowd, that includes a few recognizable members of the White Lotus, Zuko can't Just drop in without a costume, So he stays up high, in the shadows, and gives Jin a lizard-bird's eye view of the situation, as well as access to firebending, though for that, he takes over so there's actual strong firebending happening.

And yeah. When the mysterious figure who can take away bending goes from basically crawling up walls and Earthbending, to honest to the spirits _firebending_ everyones brains just glitch out. Like the bad guys still fight when she comes at them, but they are too stunned to do a good job, and she gets them down pretty quick, before hopping on a roof top because she can see the members of the White Lotus watching her, and she knows they're probably ready to follow her if she run from the scene on the ground.

Someone in the crowd shouts "It was the Avatar! You're the Avatar!?"

Jin cocks her head to the side, ready to play her part, even as out of breath and sore as she is from her first ever actual fight. By now Zuko has joined her on the roof, but low and a little farther back, where people can't see him. 

Jin speaks through him in his deeper, more masculine voice to throw off anyone who was thinking "wait but she looks like a woman?" and any White Lotus there who might know her voice. And she borrows Lóngwěi's accent, because there's no way anyone's ever heard it and it'll make Jin seem even more otherworldly.

She says "The Avatar? Don't be _silly_ , the Avatar doesn't exist." Here is just Teo's idea of being tricky and making them seem even odder. Might as well start a legend right, right? "I am of the Lián Jué Zhě. I am the one they call the Garden Master. I heard my little flowers talking and came to see what the fuss was about, and it's a very good thing I did, now isn't it (even with a mask on, the White Lotus Members can tell she's looking at them) But I have to go now."

Without her moving, Zuko shoots Lóngwěi's rainbow flames up from her feet to block them from sight for a mysterious disappearance (the freaking theater nerd that he is lol).

So what that looked like for the civilian point of view was that either the Avatar is back and is being very powerful and mysterious, or the avatar is really gone, and there's a new spirit on the loose who seems to maybe wanna do the Avatar's job?

To the White Lotus (who promptly regather the next morning), it's a message that the Lián Jué Zhě are a bigger network than previously thought, with even more spies in their own network who knew about this meeting (that was supposed to be top secret among only the elite). They think it was most likely Zuko, because he was with Iroh, and because he and Yue are the only ones whose identities they even know (but at least they now have the Blue Spirit and the Garder Master to add to the list).They don't think the Garden Master is a Spirit, and they don't think they were Zuko, because as far as they know Zuko still can't firebend. They think whoever they are, they're the Avatar, and assume the Avatar is just working undercover with the Lián Jué Zhě, for some reason. They all now are like "okay so Prince Zuko and Princess Yue know who the Avatar is, why aren't they announcing that to the world? Or at least to their elders?

And they still don't know how they're communicating. Iroh knows the crew of the Wani is loyal to Zuko, but he's been very vigilant and no one has sent a letter that Iroh hasn't had intercepted and read, and no letter had been sent by Zuko to ANYONE.

Pakku and Iroh are tasked with trying to get info out of the royals. But jokes on them because Jin was in that meeting, so now Zuko and Yue gave a heads up to watch what they say.

But rewind a little bit. After Jin and Zuko disapear behind the rainbow fire, they fucking book it for a seculuded spot for Jin to pull off the costume. Zuko takes it because she can't be caught with it and ousted as part of the Lián Jué Zhě, but if Zuko's caught with it, well it'll just reconfirm he's part of the Lián Juě Zhě, no loss there really. They part ways immediately and book it in opposition directions.

Zuko heads for the Wani, trying to make it back before Uncle (which, not that he knows, is very important, because Uncle is in fact on his way back to try and catch Zuko in the act). He makes it with a few minutes to spare, shoving the costume in someone's arms and telling them they need to hide it where it will NEVER be found by his uncle, and telling them all that if his uncle asks, he was on the ship ALL DAY. Everyone's like "you got it boss" no questions it (frankly they think Zuko was out there cross dressing and is afraid of his Uncle finding out and being mean, not that they think Iroh would be unsupportive themselves, but they'll be EXTRA damn supportive until the Prince feels comfortable to tell his Uncle).

So yeah. They basically debuted the Liàn Jué Zhě to the world and once the adrenaline wears off the cluster is like "shit what did we just do? Now they have EXPECTATIONS! They saw us bend multiple elements, they're GOING to want us to Avatar it up and face the Fire Lord!"

After some panic, they calm down cause they're like "well, if they don't approach us head on about it and we just keep quiet we're good, and things calm down a bit."

And then some ones like "WAIT ZUKO YOUR WERE FIREBENGING!!" and Zuko's thinking "oh hot damn I did!" And so he tried to create a little flame in his palms, and oh, his flames _were_ back. It just took a bit of adrenaline to overcome his fears and over thinking about it.

Of course now he has to actively keep it a secret cause his uncle can't know he got his fire bending back the day a Lián Jue Zhě was in town firebending.

Jin, for her part, had just ran in a random direction. She had the day off to explore the town, and still has a few more hours before she has to be back at the inn she's staying at, so she just wanders around, gets something to eat, redoes her hair so it _doesn't_ look like she was in a fight, tries a few perfume samples along the way so she doesn't smell so sweaty, and then calmly returns for dinner.

There were a few other members and Junior members who'd also, in groups and on their own, been out about the town that day, and she gets the run down of the day's exciting events alongside them that night at dinner. Of course all members that had been unsupervised at the time of the Garden Master's appearance are going to be under scrutiny, but Jin feels she can get through it because the focus isn't solely on her.

The rest of fall is uneventful. At some point, they make port in Goaling, and Zuko manages to get the Garden Master's costume off the ship by giving it to Toph.

After that, Toph has it sent to Suki. The Cluster is trying to throw the White Lotus off of Jin's trail, and so Suki tells her girls they have a mission on the mainland. She tells them it's about the same thing that told her the Southern Water Tribe was coming to join the war, and the thing that had made her scream so loud one day the whole village had heard it. They don't know the full story just yet, but they trust Suki, so her team heads for the mainland.

They do a bit of vigilante justice from town to town along the coast. Suki of course is dressed as the Garden Master and lets herself get seen enough that word will hopefully get back the White Lotus that the Garden Master is on the Southern Coast and totally _definitely_ not in Ba Sing Se _AT ALL_. None of the Kyoshi Warriors wear their own uniforms of course, they don't want this tied back to them or their very-much-trying-to-be-neutral-thank-you-very-much island. No one but Suki is really seen, there are a handful of reports of other black clad figures fighting in the shadows but there's no confirmation of numbers.

There are two benders on Suki's team, one is Earth and one is Water, Suki practices fake bending with them, so they can bend from the shadows and make it look like it was her. (The White Lotus are like "oh good, the Avatar had a pretty good handle of at least three elements,")

As fall ends, the girls call it quits, and head back home, on the way the girls finally get the courage to ask for the full story, about why Suki was pretending to be some vigilante masked Avatar, and with the clusters permission, because they were so loyal to just go with it and help without asking, she tells them the whole truth.

Well obviously the girls think that's the coolest damn thing and are like "hell yeah we're gonna keep doing this vigilante thing right? We can send the Garden Master dress to another Lián Jué Zhě so she's 'somewhere else in the world' and get you your own costume by spring right?"

Suki's like "I don't know about that, we have a responsibility to home, but we'll talk about it."

Anyway once they get home, Suki ships the costume to Chi, because he's decided he wants to go on a bit of a Spiritual Journey. A few of his friends are coming too, and they of course know the whole situation, so they're like "we'll be your shadows like Suki's team. A few of them are also waterbenders, so they'll also have that bending form. They spend winter in the warmer North of their continent, near the equator, and give a merry chase the one occasion they actually meet up with some members of the White Lotus. They actually have no idea what the White Lotus were doing there. But they'd had fun "getting caught" spying and tripping up the White Lotus members from the shadows as they'd Chased Chí through a village and into a forest.

The Blue Spirit- Jeong-Hui and Chiyo, cause she got her mask back from Zuko- makes a few appearances too, in the colonies. Wanted poster as erected and the cluster isn't sure if they want to celebrate that or freak the fuck out.

Down in the south though, things get really bad.

See, as previously mentioned, the White Lotus had had their gathering because someone else had had a vision from the spirits about the fate of the world over the next few years. But the whole reason that man had had a vision at all was because the spirits had a big surge of activity, and therefore sent out a lot of spiritual energy which that guy had channeled.

That surge of energy was a result of the Ocean Spirit creating one massive storm in the ocean to push The Avatar's Iceberg toward the Southern Water Tribe faster, because the spirits knew without a proper motivation, their Lián Jué Zhě were about to make the same mistake of avoiding their responsibilities as the young Avatar, and that just, could NOT happen.

Of course that storm was massive, and brings winter to the South early, it's going to screw up the only passageway through the waters that the men that are at war used to get back to the village when they go back for the winter, which means the village is going to be alone, in a dangerous storm, with the elderly, disabled, mothers with children to look after, said children, and not enough supplies and food that the men have been bring back in the winter for them.

By this point, most every small tribe that made up the Southern Water Tribe as a whole, had migrated into one, into Katara's Village, to the point that it was more of a small town now, with a few shops and a decent dock. Over the years she'd fortified a wooden watch town with dense ice for her brother and the few men that were unable to join the war efforts for one reason or another, and a good twenty foot wall around their whole settlement to keep out predators.

But a wall that small wouldn't keep out the storm, and unfortunately the storm is headed straight for the last decent population of the Southern Water Tribe, if they don't survive, the Southern Water Tribe is basically extinct (the Ocean Spirit may also being stress testing the Cluster again)

So yeah. Everyone in the south is freaking out, Suki says her village had enough food and supplies to spare, but their fishing boats wouldn't be able to shield them from the storm to actually get there. Zuko's like "my Ship could totally make it" so they just have to figure out how Zuko can "get the information" without Uncle getting suspicious.

How they end up doing it is that Zuko claims he wants to go sightseeing around the Southern Air Isle, the main temple or something, and while they're on their way there, they "happen" to meet up with a small fishing boat in need of assistance.

Suki and her girls act all suspicious about the Fire Nation ship helping them at first, and Zuko just lets Uncle take the lead, talking with the girls, (Uncles isn't surprised its a group of young teens going to help the south, as through the White Lotus he knows the adult Kyoshi Warriors are helping in the War now), reading the letter that was sent to them "by the acting chief" (really, Katara just dictated to Suki, and gave her the name of the acting chief to sign at the bottom). Zuko lets it be Iroh's suggestion that they help, and just agrees to give the order.

So from there, cause like, they met in the middle of the Ocean, the Kyoshi warriors' ship get tugboated along until they reach the northern tip of the Southern Water Tribe, where like, hilariously (not really) they spot the men from the Water Tribe, who are just waiting at their camp on the beach because they know they can't make it through the pass with all the storming going on. 

Suki tells the crew of the Wani that she's met the chief, and she'll take a lifeboat to the shore to meet with them and explain. And she does just that. Of course she gives all the real details since Hakoda knows about the Clusters, and shortly after, the Water Tribe has packed up their camp, and loaded everything of importance onto the Wani, along with everything from Suki's boat, and left their ships, and Suki's boat, on the beach for the season as they all head South in the very warm, very fast, very strong Wani.

On one day of the journey they pass by this very large, glowing circle in the water. The Water Tribesmen are like "yeah that thing's been there for almost thirty years, it's getting closer and bigger, and we're keeping an eye on it, but we have no idea what it is. Also it's definitely larger and closer than it's ever been. This crazy storm is definitely pushing it closer inland and up to the surface."

They do have a bit of a rough time, but they make it to the Water Tribe in one piece after almost a week. Then of course that's when the first cold front of the season hits and the ocean freezes to the point that even the Wani can't go back. So yeah, Zuko and Suki's crews are stuck in the south for the winter.

Iroh had watched Zuko interacting with Suki and the other teens on the way south, and he was a little surprised with how well they get along, as he doesn't remember Zuko ever having his own friends or really hanging out with anyone that wasn't just his sister's two friends. This oddness continues as he watches his nephew also make good friends with Chief Hakoda's two children.

The Katar, Sokka, Zuko, and Suki sneak away and hang out a lot, with Zuko and Katara practicing each other's bending, and they all go penguin sledding, and even take down a giant caribou-leopard that feeds like half the town. Zuko and Suki have fun drilling the HELL out of Sokka until he can actually hold his own in a fight.

One day when Katara is practicing waterbending in town with Suki and the one Kyoshi Warrior that was also a waterbender, named Satomi, a bunch of little kids had gather around to watch because they thought the magic water was AMAZING (And some adults too, who get a little emotional to see so much waterbending back in their tribe, even just for a little while). Then one of the little girls is like "can I play magic water with you too?"

And Katara is all "sorry Hama, but you have to be a waterbending to do this." 

And little Hama's like "But I am."

and they're all like "Uh,,, what was that now?"

So she shows them. She doesn't do more than pick up a little mound of snow and push it a few feet but it has everyone gasping and celebrating. Over the next few day a bunch of other young kids are seen trying to Waterbend (cause obviously they wanna play with the water and get all that attention that Hama got) and it turns out like, at least twenty of the kids are actually waterbenders, that's like, more than half the kids, and just no one caught it cause no one's seen waterbending, let alone subtle weak toddler waterbending in like, a whole generation.

So yeah, the tribe is just fucking EXTATIC! They're like "the balance of the world is coming back!" "this is a blessing from the spirits!" All that jazz. It's truly great. Katara and Suki and Satomi spend winter teaching the kids the basics of push and pull, and freezing and melting the ice, and how to keep it under control so you don't melt the iglo all over the family and the warm furs.

Zuko uses one hunting trip with Sokka and his couple friends Panuk and Toklo* to "rediscover" his firebending. Uncle's like, so happy, and suspects nothing about the Chameleon Bay incident. He promises they'll get back to training in the spring.

One day Zuko, Sokka, Katara and Suki are hanging out again, and Suki's like "what do you think is up with the glowing spot in the water on the way to your town?"

And Katara's like "I don't know, my dad's taken me out there the last couple of years to see if I could pull it up, last year I could get a hold of it, but I couldn't pull it up. It's too big and it feels like it's kinda. I don't know, resisting me, it's weird."

They get the idea that when spring comes and the ice melts (the storm stopped finally half way through winter) Katara, Suki, Zuko, and Satomi will sneak up the pass on a boat and see if the collective power of the four of them can pull it up.

Winter ends, and it's a blessing. No one had starved, no one had died from injuries hunting (a few had given it a shot, but Katara was a master healer. She also gave Satomi some lessons so she could take that knowledge back with her) and no one froze to death in the night, because the entire winter the town have been huddled up in longhouses with the Firebenders evenly disperse as space heaters every night (they absolutely invite the crew of the Wani back on that alone, but like,,, the Fire Nation crew have been HELLA miserable all winter, so they side step completely accepting the invitation).

When spring comes they all sneak away (with the Kyoshi Warriors and Sokka too of course) and with the four of them, and the thing under the water being closer to the surface, they do actually manage to grab onto it and pull it up some. But it's still too far down for them to keep a hold of it all the way to the surface. They try like ten times before they give up, totally exhausted and feeling like they played the toughest tug-of-war game in their life!

After that the Water Tribe and Kyoshi warriors all pack up and join the crew of the Wani heading back north to rejoin the world.

Oh also, Pukka had been hella nosey up into Yue's business all winter, but with her and Hanh's friends running interference, he's gotten nothing. At least he's still respectful towards her, like maybe he's come to begrudgingly respect her strong will, and her loyalty to her secret cause.

Also after winter he gets a letter from Iroh saying that the one girl in the South that is Yue's age is a master bender and her fighting style is the same mix of Northern and Foggy Swamp that Yue's is.

They're beginning to suspect the Spirits are involved with the Lián Jué Zhě.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Panuk and Toklo belong to muffinlance (her username on here and tumblr) I just couldn't resist giving them a little cameo


	11. In Which More Progress And Some Mistakes Are Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I told y'all I get anxiety and just stop writing. I legit didn't even open the Google doc I'm writing this on for the entire two months I've been gone. I have the story in my head, I knew what I wanted to do, I just felt sick trying to actually write. Anyway I'm back and wrote this in two days :) Also could y'all imagine if I was taking this seriously? They'd still be twelve and I would have posted any of this.

Okay, so backing up a little.

Chí taking the Garden Master costume along the Northern border between the South and West Earth Continents for winter.

Obviously this is also a spiritual journey for Chí, he's trying to figure out where his mojo went so he and his friends visit lots of temples and holy grounds, talk with sages, and priests, but Chí still never manages anything. It's frustrating. He's also not a big fan of physical fighting. Of course having been semi trained by Toph he can hold his own, but he's basically tarnishing the reputation of the Garden Master that Suki built up over fall by not really managing to catch any bad guys. At best he and his friends can stall until some real authorities get there. He's not even good at stealth without Zuko or Jin or Jeong-Hui's aid either.

It's not till near the end of winter when he figures out exactly what's wrong.

It was a week after he and his friends had had their close call with the member of the White Lotus, having been chased into the woods by the men who wanted answers. They hadn't been attacking Chí's group, but they'd been relentless in the chase and it was a long time before Chí and his friends finally managed to get away. They had all been exhausted and frustrated and had barely set up camp for the night before crashing. The next morning, Chí had taken the Garden Master costume and chucked it in the stream in his frustration.

He knew he should be long past not living up to his own grand expectations of himself but not only had this journey been a complete waste in finding him a spiritual master, but he'd come nearly three feet from getting caught last night and exposing himself not as the Garden Master, but as yet another Lián Jué Zhě.

"Hey." Luyu says suddenly. He sees a brief glimpse of a harbor full of boats in the wide, tall mouth of a cave, before Luyu closes her eyes. It's not a total secret that Luyu lives by the ocean in an intricate cave system, but even if that can't give away her people's EXACT location, they still respect the privacy she wants.

"Hey" he says, taking a sniff of the salty sea air on her end of the connection, so much different from the smell of the swamp. "Whats up?"

"Nothing much. Hanging out with my friends."

"Hey, whoever Luyu's visiting." Chí hears.

"Hey." Chí greets them through Luyu. "It's Chí, I'm the one from the swamp?"

"Oh yeah, hey." Says Prakash, the guy Chí knew used to be Luyu's bully until he'd eaten some humble pie, and Luyu hadn't shoved his face in it.

"Well, what's up?" Another one of Luyu's friends asked.

"I'm having a bad day."

"Same." Luyu said.

"What happened?" Chí asks.

"One of my dad's broke his leg, so I have to take his place on the fishing boat tomorrow, and that news just threw off my whole day. Had to babysit for a neighbor for a couple hours and her kid's a mean little thing, just kept YELLING and would eat lunch and needed a nap but wouldn't take one, it was exhausting." Chí feels Luyu lay back on the ground. "What about you?"

Chí pulls the conversation to his end so he can talk from his own mouth and not be overheard by Luyu's friends, who are probably trust worthy enough, but still.

"We almost got caught by some White Lotus members last night." Chí sighed. "But it's more than that I guess. Thahn almost busted his head open in our last fight with some criminals- thank the spirits Yue could walk him through healing himself. None of them want to be out here anymore, and neither do I. I haven't made any ground on reconnecting with my spiritual side and I'm starting to realize I have a harder time tapping into the well of our shared instincts."

"Man. I wish I could help, but if you needed spiritual guidance, you're better off with Ty Lee. She can at least see auras."

"I wish I could come to you, I bet you have great spiritual teachers in those caves."

"Yeah, but it's too risky and the elders would never allow it. And they won't teach me if they think our secrets or whatever will get back to you all."

"Don't suppose there's anyone who would be willing to meet me on neutral ground?" He asked, not expecting a positive response.

"Not a chance." Luyu said, shaking Chí's head. Then suddenly "I mean. Well, actually…"

And BOY if Chí didn't perk up at that.

"Yeah!?"

"Well, he's not actually Air Nation, but there's this guy that made his home in the East Air Temple a few years ago. The elders caught on that someone was up there and they sent some people to investigate, thinking it might have been a group of Air Nomad, or some descendants, like Teo's clan, and they wanted to see if they would leave the temple, as our Elders didn't want the Fire Nation coming back to the area for them and finding us.

"But anyway. It turned out it was just the one man staying, Guru Pathik. He'd had some former students of his helping him make the Eastern Air Temple a little more habitable for himself only, and they would leave after a month. It turns out he's a very old and renowned spiritual teacher, and that he had a vision many years ago that a young Airbender would come to him seeking help in restoring balance to the world, and his vision led him to the Easter Temple.

"But he could help me!?" Chí burst out in excitement.

"I mean maybe. We still have people go up there occasionally, and he's always alone, and like I said, all his students left him. So he might not be taking anyone on that isn't the Airbender from his vision."

"Oh, yeah," Chí instantly deflates. "Anyway, everyone wants to go home, I could hardly ask them to come on an even longer journey than this one… But well…"

"But well?"

"Maybe, you could go for me?"

"Nope!"

"No, come on! You're right there!"

"I am not leaving the caves!"

'You just said you were going out on the boat!"

"It's not the same!"

"Come on Luyu, I _need_ this- the cluster, _we all_ need this! Please," he pleads with her.

Sighing from her own mouth, Luyu opens her eyes to look at the rocky cave ceiling with its hanging stalactites.

Frowning she says to her friends "My worst nightmare has come true."

Suddenly the three boys are all leaning over her, eyes wide and excited.

"Really? He asked you to leave the caves? Where are we going?" Prakash asks.

"The Eastern Air Temple."

Chí is so happy and greatful and mentally hugs the hell out of Luyu.

Luyu tries to stay positive. She and her friends have talked about it before, the idea that Luyu, and by extension themselves- because of course they'd never leave Luyu to it alone- would have to step up and participate in the world outside the safety of their colony for the sake of that very world. They'd already made several half-plans for means of travel and what all they would need on a journey.

But Luyu really didn't want to go, she didn't want to be brave or adventurous. She wanted to stay where she was safe, and where she could always be sure her family was safe. She didn't want to get into a fight for her life, she didn't want to lose any of her friends!

She agonises quietly over the next week as she puts on a brave face and makes solid, real plans with her friends for just how they'll get to the temple. They thought they'd steal a boat at first, but with winter stores already depleting, the Colony needed all the boats they could get out on the water, so they chose to journey by land- much less chance of being spotted than on open waters too, though it would be a much longer trip. There were a handful of pygmy bison who were mostly used for helping the Airbenders of the Eastern Colony move heavier things around the cave systems, and the friends were sure one wouldn't be too sorely missed. They were too small for more than two, maybe three of them to ride comfortably with no luggage, but just for helping carry things up the mountains even one bison would be a relief.

None of the four of them tell anyone of their plans, knowing if even a whisper is heard by the elders, the whole operation would get shut down. Luyu understands where they're coming from, even agrees, but no matter how much her stomach rolls, no matter how much her hands shake at the prospects of walking out of the caves and back to the desolate wasteland that used to be a flourishing mountain forest, she knows it's her duty. She knows. She always knew, right from the very start.

She knew she would have to leave, to really go out and face danger. From the day they were twelve and the others worked together to get Yanli out of the Fire Nation, and the twelve of them had been drowning in the euphoria of success, she knew it was going to be her responsible just like the rest of them to get out there and do something… she'd just hoped she have more time.

But still, her cluster needed her. They needed access to the spirits, and Chí was there best shot at it. If he needed a teacher then she was going to step up and get him one.

At least, that's what she told herself up until the very moment they were ready to go.

There was someone guarding the one intentionally uncollapsed tunnel that lead outside- there always was- and Luyu stood her ground in the shadows with Isha and their stolen bison as Prakash approached the man, distracting him by pretending to sleepwalk, as Isha's brother Hira came from behind and chi-blocked the guard.

Luyu was shaking by the time they made it to the mouth of the cave and it takes being gently pulled and pushed by her friends- who know she was struggling, but also know they don't have the time for it- to get her outside.

They know the small bison isn't really meant to be ridden by so many people, and with so many carry-ons, but they had picked a strong adult in his prime knowing they needed to put as much distance between themselves and the colony, and so they all mount the bison just this once. The bison makes it a couple hours before landing without being told, and promptly taking a nap. By then it's nearing dawn, and they don't elect to make camp, just curl up with the bison and take a short nap- ths stress of the night catching up with all of them.

The next day they properly load their luggage onto the bison- who doesn't complain about this comparatively small amount to carry- and begin heading north on foot.

They make the whole journey without seeing anyone from the colony, and so they had no idea what anyone thought, if they'd even sent out a party to return them, or left them to their fate. Luyu had left a small note telling her parents simply that it had been time, knowing they would understand what that had meant only in that her connection to the other and the reason for it had finally shown itself, but not knowing where their daughter had gone. She hoped they weren't too worried, but she knew they would support her.

Their journey is almost a month long, and it's the most fun any one of them have ever had. Everything from listening to the chatter of the animals they'd never heard to the simple chance to walk for as far as their legs would take them was incredible. Only the first couple days of the journey did they see any signs of the Fire Nation and the war, but after that the forest covered mountains had been pristine and untouched. As far as they could guess the Fire Nation hadn't chased the Air Nomads to the caves all the way from the Temple, but rather found the caves at some later date and a seperate battle had taken place. They couldn't fathom why some many bodies had been left unburied, by the nomads who had clearly one, though.

After a few days Luyu had been the only one worried about an ambush-from either their people come to get them, or the enemy come to kill them- and while she never really let the paranoia go, she too eventually joined in they're walking songs, belting them out as load as she could, almost daring her worries to come true. 

Her owlcats, a fluffy brown thing named Anzu, loved the journey just as much and brought a never ending supply of small prey animals to their camp as gifts. They eventually named the bison- as they had no idea what her name had originally been- Poppy, and she's a sweet little thing who loves to curl up with them around the fire at night.

Winter had really set in by the time they made it to the Eastern Air Temple, and even if it hadn't been looking like a wonderful place to take shelter, it still would have been the most grand and beautiful thing they had ever seen in their lives. Their had been a moment as they came over a cliff that the Temple came into view with its beautiful spiraled architecture and towers reaching for the skies, that they'd all had to pause and take in just how monumental it was that they were soon to be the first Air Nomads in a century to take up residence in their ancestral home.

They'd run for a while, trying to get there as quickly as possible, but eventually they'd gotten tires, and had to stop.

They made it to the Temple the next day, and wandered quietly around for hours. The entire cluster was present with Luyu for the arrival, especially Teo and Ty Lee, who were fascinated to see another temple.

They're found by the Guru before they find him. They're exploring the overgrown paths of one of the cliff side gardens filled with many types of ever-green plants when he appears.

"It's a lovely garden isn't it?"

They all turn around, spotting an elderly man with a long white bread, dressed in bright yellow monks robes.

Luyu is the closest to where the Guru stands, and she nods. "It might be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. We don't have anything like it where we come from."

"Yes, the Eastern Air City is rather too lacking in sunlight to grow such a garden there. And all the good soil is taken up by crops I presume." The man smiles. "Please come inside, the temperatures dropping rapidly and there's a promise of more snow on the wind. I say we gather around a nice warm fire and make our introduction."

They all follow the man up to the temple and through several large hallways and a few narrow pathways, getting thoroughly lost, before finding themselves in a kitchen with a large fireplace cooking some kind of stew in a pot.

The guru points them to the bowls and spoons and had them set the table while he tends to the stew, stirring to be sure it hasn't burned while he was away. Only once they're all sat down and warming their bellies does the Guru introduce himself properly and ask for their names.

Prakash takes up the introduction when Luyu hesitates, introducing himself, and the brothers first. "And this is Luyu, we came with her because she needs a spiritual teacher."

Luyu nods. "I heard you had a vision once, about an airbender that would come to you and claim the balance of the world lay in their hands. That's probably me."

"Probably?"

"Well, its my friend Chí who needs your help, he's the spiritual one, but he couldn't come- you see, well," and she explains how the cluster works, and that it's Chí who will actually be having lessons with Guru Pathik, it'll just be through Luyu.

(Friendly reminder I put little effort into writing this "professionally" and this conversation got annoying to write, so I gave up because I haven't touched this story in like two months and I wasn't hitting writer's block like that again. I tried to keep this chapter decent as a treat, but it just wasn't working here.)

Guru Pathik is surprised and amazed and when he learns that they all got connected at age ten, he's like "was that about five years ago?" And she's like "yeah" and he's like "That's when I had my vision of an airbender coming to me here." And they basically decide that he probably had his vision in direct connection to them.

Guru Pathik spends the rest of the day talking with just Luyu and her friends, but requests speaking alone with Luyu and her Cluster the next day.

And yeah, Guru Pathik speaks with all of them, just basic introduction, casual stuff at first like favorite foods, making jobs, stander stuff he does so hisbstudent aren't intimidated by him or anything, then asks stuff about their spiritual training, and learns Chí, Ty Lee, and Yue, are the only ones with any true affinity for the spirits.

They train all through winter with Prakash, Hira and Isha joining Luyu and Chí most days, but Yue and Katara finds an interest in it when Guru Pathik mentions that knowledge on how to read another's spirit can help with healing, (Suki and Chí take notes to give to their respective waterbending friends). The others in the cluster only really join in after the winter solstice, when Guru Pathik figures out what's been holding Chí back from his spiritual connections.

Turns out that yeah, duh, their spirits are connected. So all of their spirits staying on the physical plain, has been holding Chí's spirit back from connecting again with the spirit world. Basically after that, Guru Pathik makes them all attend lessons with him. He makes them all work through clearing their own chakras, and learning to pull from each other chakra pools. At the moment Zuko, Suki, and Katara are together, and Chí and Toph can meet up every couple of week, so he has them mainly practicing pulling from each others chi while sharing bending, and that gives everyone the chance to feel the ways their chi paths are connected with each others.

Finally as the last of the snow is melting, Chí is sitting under the Banyan tree in the swamp, Yue has sneaked away to the Spirit Oasis, Teo is in the storage basement with all the saved artifacts of his people, Lóngwěi is in the cave of the Masters, and all the others are simply alone where they feel most comfortable, and they finally do it. Chí and Yue do it really, the other only tag along.

One moment they're each sitting alone, eyes closed, and the next they're standing face to face over a frozen expanse of water with fish of all shapes and sizes and colors swimming just feet below them. When Yue and Chí's eyes meet they can't help but laugh and hug each other, so excited for what they'd managed to do! Everyone is chattering away in their heads, but funnily enough, they can't take control- of course they try instantly, they've been testing limits for years, it only comes as instinct to see what they can do, and they can't control the two's spirits in the spirit world. It's Luyu who wonders if she could take over one of their bodies in this state. And, yeah, she can. She draws into Yue, and open's the princesses eyes, stands, takes a few steps, before sitting and withdrawing.

"That felt strange though, like I was alone in there."

"I didn't even feel you move me. I didn't see anything through my own eye, like, I was seeing through my own eyes through _you_ , if that makes sense…" They agree not to do that ever again unless the body of one in the spirit world was in danger. Anyway this is an amazing big breakthrough and after that Chí's almost never not in the spirit world.

He finds the Banyan Tree in the spirit world very fast, she was practically calling him to her, and she greets him warmly the day he finds her, enveloping him in a tight hug, and kissing his forehead.

"I've been so proud, watching you grow and learn. Seeing everything you've done with the others, for all those people."

And yeah, this is where they get the answers.

They finally learn they _are_ supposed to be replacing the Avatar, that he's the thing in that big iceberg near Katara, that the big winter storm was the ocean spirit trying to push the avatar to the surface because the Lián Jué Zhě had seemed reluctant to take up the mantle and the spirits were trying everything in their power rebalance the mortal world.

After that the cluster spends spring feeling guilty that, yeah, they were putting it off, and well, now they ought to come up with a plan. They're at about the age an avatar would be told of their identity and duty, and begin their training in the other elements bending styles and cultures, so they're already ahead because most of them are already masters of their respective elements and share that skill with others, and they all already know about each other's way of life quite intimately.

"We're basically one fully realized avatar," Teo said one day while they're discussing it.

"We're gonna have to do it. We're gonna have to face the Fire Nation for real." Suki said soberly, the thing they all knew but none of them wanted to voice.

They're all quiet 

Then, "Well, that or we could just force the Avatar out of the iceberg." Lóngwěi suggests. "They'd be pretty safe hidden in the South while we catch them up on the last hundred years and the state of the world now, then it would all be they're problem."

"That's not what the spirits want." Chí argues. "They want us to do something."

"They want us to do something if the avatar doesn't. We're back up. Of course they'd rather have the Avatar. They tried to make a new avatar before they went experimenting with us didn't they?"

"Yeah, but you all saw me, Suki, Zuko and Satomi trying to pull that iceberg up last winter. We aren't strong enough." Katara says. "It's gotta be us."

"The ocean is actively pushing it to shore Katara. Maybe by next winter it'll be close enough you guys can pull it up." Toph suggests. "In the meantime I bet the Blind Bandit and Gentlemen Thieves can terrorize some Fire Nation Soldiers around the continent."

"The Gentleman Thieves?" Ty Lee chuckles. "Who came up with that? Was it your boyfriend?"

"If you are referring to Li Bai, yes he came up with it, and no, he is STILL not my boyfriend."

"Yet." Jin adds.

"Ever." Toph insists.

No one teases Toph farther, they know she has a small crush on the street kid who works for the Earth Rumble, but pushing her would only push her farther away.

"It's a good name." Yue changes the topic. " Hahn's been calling himself and our friends the Children of the Depths, to go along with my name being Moon Blessed, theirs references the ocean."

"So is that what we're going to do then? Keep the peace until we can free the Avatar?" Suki asks. "What happens if we really can't?"

"Then we do it." Zuko said seriously. "We do whatever we have to to overthrow my father, and get my uncle on the throne."

And so yeah. That's their plan.

Over winter Hoshi had been remaking Jin a more sturdy and battle-ready Gardenmaster costume. It was an almost perfect replica, aside from the notable lower quality of the fabrics, but that was hardly going to bother Jin. Hoshi also made herself a costume, insisting she wasn't going to let Jin run around the rooftops all on her own, and that Jin was just going to have to teach her how to fight. Hoshi, sticking with what seemed to be a theme of the Lián Jué Zhě's companions having accompanying themes to their alter egos, models her's after the Gopher Snake, a slinky, four legged, carnivorous reptile with venomous fangs that she said was a blessing to any garden for keeping the pest population down.

They debut themselves the day of the Spring Equinox Festival, quite by accident. They'd been trailing White Lotus members for about a week, knowing that while they didn't want to get caught, they needed practice and it was entirely more safe to get caught tailing the White Lotus than it was the Dia Li. Today they'd simply been tailing a group of older members as they celebrated the festival. They'd even come up with a challenge, whichever of the two of them could steal something off of one of the elders first- as they all had at least one festival prize each- without getting caught was the winner. Of course they didn't count on the fact that such a boisterous crowd of people in the lower rings was something that the Dia Li found potential quite dangerous, and about half way through the afternoon, they ended up climb, in full costume, up onto a roof on which three Dia Li agents were already perched watching the crowds for any suspicious activity.

The Dia Li didn't hesitate to start chasing them. Launching their stone handcuffs at the two one after the other after the other. If it wasn't for Toph gift of seismic sense they would have been toast. But as it was, Jin was able to keep a metaphorical eye on their three pursuers as she pulled Hoshi along through a maze of alleys, using her earthbending to look ahead for the least crowded alley ways they might use to vanish. After several minutes they were cornered in a dead end. Jin pulled out enough knives to fit between each of her fingers, her cluster with her and on high alert, and saw that Hoshi, though not yet a particularly good shot, was holding her own couple of knives, looks quite believably like she would throw them without hesitating. Jin thought she looked beautiful.

The Dia Li rounded the corner and both Jin and Hoshi threw their knives. Neither of Hoshi's hit, but one did stick in the wall only inches for the eyes of one Dia Li Agent, making him flinch. Between Jeong-Hui's immaculate aim, Suki's decent skills at knife throwing, and Ty Lee's knowledge of the body, two of the agents were down in seconds, the knife blade jamming into the chi paths and pressure points of two agents, knocking them to the ground paralyzes for the moment, and due to the potential scarring of their chi paths, possibly permanently without their bending. Jin had seen Suki do this exact thing several times last fall in her fights, and she felt a little sick at the idea of permanently taking someone bending from them, but this was life and death just as it had been for Suki. And she would always choose herself and Hoshi over anyone else 

Of course this still left them cornered with one very angry Dia Li Agent in front of them.

Jin felt his planned attack before he'd even fully executed the move. She knew he was about to launch a column of Earth straight upwords from under their feet with the intention of sending the crashing back down to the ground. He clearly didn't think they were Earthbenders, and unfortunately for him, he was only half right. Pulling Hoshi Close, Jin lent into the Dia Li Agent's assault, pulling the Earth left as the agent pushed it upwords so they were launched at an angle and propelled to the roof tops rather than falling straight back to the growns.

They're scratched and bruised but they waste no time righting themselves and making a B-line over the rooftops back towards the crowd, hoping at the very least the Dia Li agent wouldn't want to publicly harm innocent bystanders and they might be able to lose him in the crowd.

Fortunately they make it back into the crowd, just as the parade is coming through. Unfortunately this means the streets are full of people standing rather still off to the sides, and they're easily noticed running through the crowd in their costumes, and while the crowd parts for them and their pursuers, he does refrain from attacking them with earthbending.

And then they're running toward the members of the White Lotus they'd been trailing earlier, and those members were of course at the Port City last fall and recognition lights up their faces when they spotted the Garden Maste running straight for them. But then they must have noticed why the Garden Master was running straight for them, and one pulls the others to the side, against the wall of a building and lets them run past.

"Nice to see you again!" Jin calls as the pass, not looking at them so as not to tip off the Dia Li or any civilians to the White Lotus members, but knowing the members will know she saw and recognized them all the same. "Bit busy at the moment, but we ought to catch up soon!"

They keep running until they've almost reached the front of the parade, which is starting to wind its way into the lower rings, a territory the girls hoped would give them the upper hand.

Except just then several more Dia Li agents descended from the rooftops. The crowd of civilians watch on in shock and awe, the parade stops in its tracks. So do Jin and Hoshi.

"Put your hands in the air and identify yourselves." One of the agents demands.

They comply and stone cuffs encircle their wrists.

"Well this went to shit real fast." Hoshi murmurs.

"Don't worry, I have one last idea. Get ready to fall." Jin whispers back, before raising her voice to be heard throughout the crowd, and dawning Lóngwěi's accent once more. "My name is the Garden Master! I am of the Lián Jué Zhě, we are sent by the spirits to restore balance to the world in the wake of the Avatar's disappearance. Goodbye for now!" She ends cheerily, hoping to catch them off guard as the earth opens up and the two masked women disappear.

And they do indeed fall, and quite a ways too. Jin and Toph work together to move the earth like water around them so that they can sink deeper and deeper below the streets of Ba Sing Se, until finally they fall through through the ceiling of an empty Crystal Catacombs, and into a small abandoned street.

Hoshi is still clinging to Jin after their harsh landing. And Jin holds her back for a moment as she catches her breath.

"Still wanna do this with me?" Jin asks, light hearted, but serious.

Hoshi's grip loosens and she sits up to look Jin in the eyes. "I never want to do that again." She smiles softly. "But I know you have no choice. So yes I'm still in. But I never want to do that again, so we better get better at fighting and running away."

Jin takes a deep breath and pulls herself to her feet. "I agree completely, now let's get out of here, the Dia Li can't follow us straight down like that in front of that crowd without giving away that we're not crazy and there is actually something down here, but they know these catacombs much better than me and they'll be here soon."

They make it through the catacombs and back to the surface without any trouble, popping back up to the surface in the middle ring, several miles from the festival, in a quiet but not completely empty part of town. They quickly pull off their costumes, shoving them into their bags, revealing plain street clothes underneath.

They walk for a while, casually pretending they're just two friends lingering in the streets after a long day before they have to head home for the night. They knew there would be increased security at the gates into and out of all the rings that night, and they knew they had to find somewhere to hide their costumes before returning, and so, taking yet another huge risk, Jin walked them slowly, meanderingly, towards the flower shop. There, Jin carefully picks the lock of the back door, and they sneak inside, hiding their bags behind several crates of seeds..

After that they went straight back home. Collapse in bed together at Yanli's after telling their parents they'd returned and that they were going to spend the night at each other's apartment. Chihiro is happy to see them and Yanli is beyond relieved, telling them she'd seen them just before they'd disappeared underground and she'd been so worried they'd been caught.

Things are stressful after that. The Middle and Lower Rings are put under curfew, and more regular officers are seen patrolling the streets. It was not doubted that more Dia Li were going unseen in the shadows. Jin and Hoshi spend the next several weeks training quietly and mostly keeping their heads down. Jin hated to say it, but she couldn't stop thinking that if it had just been her- and the cluster- she wouldn't have had so much trouble getting away. Hoshi really needed proper training.

And training she gets. The Garden Master and her Gopher Snake don't make a reappearance until Ty Lee has taught her how to climb walls and Suki has taught her hand to hand. By then it's the end of summer. And they're both sixteen.


End file.
